Captain Bligh and the Mutineers
by Rico Perrien
Summary: After bashing their heads against the intransigence of wizarding society, escape seemed the only solution. History might not repeat itself, but sometimes there are similarities.
1. Letters from an Escapee

Captain Bligh and the Mutineers: Letters from the Escapee

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, the Easter Bunny, the Brooklyn Bridge, or property on Long Island. This writing is for my own amusement, and hopefully that of others. Additional characters are my own inventions, need to flesh out my imagining of 'what happens next'. No money made, no free flights to Tahiti, nothing.

**Timeframe:** Post DH, ignoring the epilogue

**Rating:** M

**Warning: Consensual Polygamy**

**Author's Note:** Two reviewers demanded the warning above. Given the number of Harem Harry fics, I do not think it is needed, and to my knowledge, are the first-ever requests of this type. The M rating should suffice to indicate that mature themes are being considered. Further, as the point of the polygamy is that one character refuses sex outside marriage, and that the marriage is a way to indicate (magical) permanent commitment, I do not think that this is warranted.

**Synopsis:** After bashing their heads against the intransigence of wizarding society, escape seemed the only solution. History might not repeat itself, but sometimes there are similarities.

**January 27, 2002**

Dear Ron,

It was good to hear from you again.

Congratulations on the twins. I am sure that you and Lavender will be happy with them and your mother will be ecstatic to have two more grandchildren to spoil. Nice touch with the names – we miss Fred too. I have to ask if Frederica is going to be called Freddy or Ricky. I assume that Septimus is going to be called 'Tim', just like your grandfather. I remember you telling me that he had thought 'Septimus' was too grand for everyday use.

Glad to see that the Order of Merlin money is being well used. Your parents are finally having some well-deserved comfort, and you and Ginny will have a good nest-egg after your active playing days are over (pro quidditch is a rough sport, and looking at the statistics, the average playing life is only three years). Your family really deserves better than just having to barely get by on a civil servant's pay.

I hear that you have taken my advice and retained Nutgrabber as your financial advisor and fund manager. He has done pretty well by me, being as I can't be there myself to run my own affairs. He's got us (myself and some of our friends) into some nice investments that the Ministry hacks can't touch, on top of George's operations at the Wheezes. One good one you might check into has been Neville's string of greenhouses supplying rare potion ingredients – Luna works part-time for him gathering specimens in her travels. She is still looking for those elusive Snorkacks – turned out that Caribbean nargles infest nutmeg trees, and 'The Orchard' in Grenada has a spectacular infestation, or so she says.

I have to tell you though, the actual translation of Nutgrabber's name is much more vivid than the one most people use. Over the years, I have become sufficiently fluent in the Goblin tongue to work out his full name and title. He tells me that Hermione and I are two of the only four magicals in the last century to (roughly) master their language, and Bill and Fleur are the other two. He and the rest of the Gringottt's staff I have spoken to find the usual wizards' name for their language (Gobbledygook) is as insulting as the rest of their treatment by what used to be our society.

Sorry we couldn't come to the wedding or the christening, but with two of us having a price on our heads, we really can't come back to England any time soon. You would have expected the wizarding society to be grateful that I offed Voldemort for them, but it was still amazing to me, even after long experience with Skeeter, to see them turn on us so fast when we tried to make changes for the better. Save their butts, and they love you for the moment, but interfere with their cushy lifestyle and their petty self-importance and they're on you like a cornered rat.

I still find it hilarious that the stuffy prigs in the Wizengamot refer to each other as 'Lord This' and 'Lady That'. Not one of them has a letter patent from the crown granting them a peerage, any more than Voldemort himself was a Lord. The whole 'Ancient and Noble Family' crap is just another example of how they believe they are the crown of creation. I mean, any family is an ancient one, dating back to when we all left Africa about fifty thousand years ago or so, but Noble? Not as far as anything I've ever seen! Self-interested, self-aggrandizing, self-impressed, you bet your ass!

As you know, my parents and Sirius left me with a fair bit of money and property, and the Order honoraria added to my holdings for a bit, so I'm quite comfortably off. I think I mentioned last time that 'Jeannie Barns' is staying with me, at least for the few years until the statute of limitations runs out or they come to their senses (I'm not holding my breath on that last). She's doing quite well on her investments as well and doesn't need to, but…..

I think I told you that the Potters and the Blacks made a lot of their old money in the sugar trade in the 17 and 18 hundreds, which means that some of the properties they held (at least partially since the independence of England's former colonies and a lot of the land was parcelled off to the actual inhabitants who were mostly decedents of the slaves they used to own) used to be plantations in the Caribbean. Since the bottom fell out of the sugar trade (even before France and the rest of the EU started subsidizing overpriced farmers raising sugar beets), some of the old properties planted nutmeg and cinnamon trees, among other things. However, they still keep up some sugar production, if only to provide a supply of molasses for the rum factories which were part of the properties, and which remained rather profitable.

Anyway, we're at one of their (I guess, now my) properties in the Canadian prairies – a lot of British aristocrats bought properties for cattle ranches, and before the muggle's First World War, they got rid of a lot of useless younger sons out here – what they called 'Remittance Men' as they basically kept up their lifestyle from money remitted to them from 'the Old Country'. A lot of them went 'back' to Europe in that war and didn't make it back.

In my last letter, I mentioned that you might find the story of the mutiny on the Bounty (His Majesty's Armed Transport 'Bounty') of interest. On its own, it is an interesting bit of history (even though most of the people involved were muggles, although there were some Tahitian witches involved). Part of the reason I suggested it was that it turns out that the Blacks and the Potters were the ones who put up the money for the voyage (and the subsequent more successful one) to bring breadfruit to feed the slaves on their plantations in Jamaica (the later trip was a success, but then the slaves refused to eat it). It also seems to have some parallels to my own life as well. More about this after 'Jeannie' does some more research (yeah, she's still at it, even after she quit that 'Scottish school' so suddenly - I still haven't found out why).

As I mentioned in my last letter, we are trying out a farm place in Saskatchewan in Canada for about a year. It is a grain farm with cattle which has been leased out to a neighbour family for years, and I think I may just sell it to him and his family, as I am finding that the winter here is more than I or my companions can take – it was even worse than Scotland. I can't tell you exactly where we are, as this letter may get intercepted, but the farm is located about midway between one small town called Biggar, and another called Burstall. After the first few months there, 'Jeannie' blended the names and dubbed the place 'Bugger-all', because coming from densely populated southern England, that's all she could see from the windows – there is a prairie joke that if your dog runs away, you can see him going for four days.

After just lately weathering two prairie blizzards, and losing a couple of cattle that froze to death (locally referred to as 'cowsicles' – for the last couple days it's been below -20 Celsius with high winds and wildly blowing snow – we have one snow drift about 5 metres high against the barn), we have decided that the more southerly properties sound like a much better idea for the winters. However, the tropics get too hot during summer for us temperate climate types, so I suspect that I (and possibly we, if it continues to work out that way) will come north during the summer and maybe help out at the farm.

It turns out that the family who have been working the property here, under lease for the last many years (through the local Bank of Montreal, which is affiliated with Gringott's of Canada) are a family of wizards who came here from the Ukraine in the early 1900's. We're staying in a disillusioned house, which Bob says they have called (in English translation) 'The Lord's House', on the property since some of the Black family came to visit a hundred years ago. The weather drove them away too, but I guess after winters on the Ukrainian steppes, Saskatchewan is not too bad, and the Melnychuks have stayed and thrived.

Anyway, when we arrived, we were welcomed by my 'tenants', but not very warmly until I told Bob and Katrina that I had no intention of putting them off the land. Bob is actually named Bohdan Melnychuk, but he says most Anglos (as they call us Brits) can't get the pronunciation of 'Bohdan' correct, so to us he's 'Bob'. Anyway, Bob and his brother Roman have farmed the land for the last half-century, and were very worried that us city-slickers were going to come in and ruin things. When I told him that I had no plans on that, and in fact because of my life with the Dursleys, I would not mind working around the place as a gardener and handyman, things improved sharply. He jokes that I am probably the only prairie 'Hired Man' who is a millionaire and doing it for fun – frankly, he thinks I'm nuts.

Bob tells me that the Canadian Ministry of Magic has been located in Montreal since the days when the country was under the French crown. Gringott's Canada has its headquarters in Toronto, which is the biggest city and the commercial centre of Canada. He says that, between the obsessive linguistic in-fighting between the French (here called Francophones) and the English (called Anglophones), and their general inability to acknowledge the many other linguistic groups in the country (or speak their languages), the Ukaphones (as he and his family jokingly call themselves after a comedienne, on a wireless show called the 'Royal Canadian Air Farce', coined the term) get pretty much left on their own. Katrina says that part of it is that the two dominant groups of wizards cast their spells in a form of low-caste Latin, while the Ukaphone wizards use old Slavonic, and the Ministry types don't really pay attention to their magic. So, no problem with underage magic, and such.

'Jeannie' has been going into town to the local Anglican church (the local affiliate of the Church of England), and sings in the choir. It's what they call 'Low' Anglican, rather than the 'High' Anglican that she was raised in, but you work with what you have locally. She could apparate into one of the bigger centres, but we are trying to maintain a low profile, magically. As the Dursleys never took me to church, I really don't know the difference, but some people seem to think it's important. She has a nice voice, and she is getting me to try singing as well. I'm to the point where the cows don't run away when I serenade them, but not much better.

She has also been spending a lot of time with Katrina and Maria (Roman's wife) learning all she can about the Ukrainian forms of magic. If there is something more to try to learn, she's on it like botrytis mold on a ripe grape.

At Christmas, we had Bob and Katrina, and Roman and Maria and their kids and grandkids in for Christmas dinner. The night before, we had gone to midnight service at the church, and then spent the day preparing. 'Jeannie' arranged the house while I prepared the feast (I swear that girl could burn water). A week and a half later, they invited us to midnight mass at their Ukrainian Orthodox church, and then over to their place for another Christmas feast. The Ukrainians keep to the old Julian calendar, so Christmas to them is like January 6th to us.

One surprise was that our petite blonde friend, who for the moment I will call 'Selena Bonamour', arrived to visit over the holidays (not that there is much holiday on a working farm with cattle). She had put together a number of wildly nebulous clues, somehow figured out where we are, and popped in (and I do mean 'popped'). She apologised (after regaining consciousness after being hit by two stunners – the old 'constant vigilance' is still working) for the popping sound and noted that she still hasn't got the hang of silent apparation. Apparently, she had written some articles in the Quibbler that annoyed some very powerful and narrow-minded people, so she's on the run too, and figured we could use the company, being all in about the same situation.

It turns out that Selena has a beautiful high singing voice, and is fluent in Ukrainian after several trips with her father looking for the remaining woolly mammoths on the Russian and Ukrainian plains – at their Christmas service, she sang the hymns perfectly along with our neighbours (in Ukrainian, which impressed them mightily). She and Katrina had a lot of fun comparing the different dialects from Selena's recent exposure to modern Ukrainian, while Katie spoke in a pattern which is as it was when their ancestors lived under the Tsar, and then evolved here for the last hundred years. She says it is quite common in Canada, having had waves of immigrants from various times, for groups to insist that they speak the 'pure' language and all the others are mangling their beautiful tongue of their ancestors. In a way it sadly reminds me of the old wizarding families in what used to be home, fighting to stay as they were a couple hundred years ago.

Selena and Anastasia (Roman's youngest granddaughter) have gotten along very well, and now that the temperature has gone up to above minus 20 Celsius (the battle cry of the prairie Canadian – "But It's a Dry Cold!") they are out exploring the jackalope nests a couple kilometres south of here. Unlike their more common cousins, the rabbits and jackrabbits (actually hares), the big jackalopes can't burrow underground and so they nest on the surface of the ground. When they cluster together, from a distance their antlers look like scrub bushes, which makes them harder for predators to find.

'Selena' says she has an affinity for many creatures with long ears, which is why her patronus is a rabbit. You know, that girl continues to amaze me, even after all these years. I can't decide whether she is just brilliant beyond my ability to comprehend, completely insane, or for her own amusement she just says strange things to keep me off balance – she once told me that petite creatures (as she thinks of herself) often use distractions to keep predators and other threats away.

I should sign off now, as I have been told to go out and clear the drifted snow off the driveway into the house (about 200 metres from the main road). Stasha (Anastasia) and Vlad (Bob's grandson) suggested I bank it all on top of the barn, and we can use it as a ski hill. With hard-packed snow, I can levitate the chunks, but if the drifts are soft, all you get is clouds of snow which settle back down from where you just picked it up. The tractor has a nice bucket attachment that I can move about half a ton at a time, and not be totally exhausted (magically and physically) by the end of the day.

Once we get a little better at skiing, the families have asked us to join them at Easter for a ski trip to the Rockies west of Calgary, before the year's planting starts.

Later.

Love to all.

'Jim Evans'

**April 18, 2002**

Hello again Ron.

Thanks for the pictures of the twins. It looks like Tim is going to inherit the Weasley red hair, but little Ricki is going to get a mix of Lav's blonde and yours, coming out to be a strawberry blonde. Either way, she's going to be a beautiful girl like her mother, and Timmy looks like he is going to be as handsome as his dad (Hermione's comment).

We enjoyed your comment about the name of our little house-in-the-boonies. I guess you didn't notice that Hermione apparently learned to swear (bet you didn't know that our little bookworm had quite a mouth on her after a few, which is one reason why she doesn't drink much). She tells me that her Dad served in the Royal Navy, and that he taught her to curse (and to drink rum), and her mother tried to teach her not to. It seems Sally Granger felt that her daughter cursing like a sailor would not be 'becoming' as she turned into a proper young lady. Guess she never met the rest of the girls from Hogwarts.

You will also notice that I have dropped the use of the pseudonyms. We had an interesting visit from the Royal Canadian Magical Police (sort of the national aurors). I guess when Voldemort's people were in charge of the ministry back in our sixth and what would have been our seventh year, a lot of countries threatened to break off diplomatic relationships with ours, and some actually did. Since then, they have been keeping a close eye on things at 'home', and the Canadians are very unhappy about the way things are going – nice to know I'm not alone in this opinion. They told me not to worry about the international warrant and the extradition request. Canada, the States and a lot of other countries are making a great show of searching in places that they are well aware have no hope of success, and sending reports back to the idiots in London. The RCMP have known where I was the whole time (I guess with current security issues, they keep close track of magical foreigners who arrive unannounced), but somehow have neglected to inform Britain of that fact.

However, we are trying not to make their illusion too difficult, in case one of the ministry's bunch decide to check things out for themselves. I suspect that their welcome will not be what they imagine, as Constable Delacour (yes, he is a distant relative of your sister-in-law, whose family has been here for over three hundred years) told me that they are not keen on what he called 'external interference'. They have already caught a number of hit wizards trying to sneak into the country looking for me. Needless to say, they were not welcomed with open arms, and the ones the States picked up are currently spending an involuntary holiday in Cuba without their wands, as suspected foreign terrorists.

Turns out that the Melnychuks knew who we were all along too. They has a magic-compatible computer and cable telly (why couldn't we get stuff like that in Britain – another point of how backward British wizarding society is, I guess), and they watch the news from overseas. Our faces have been on the news from England enough time that they recognized us (particularly once they started putting up the 'wanted' announcements). We explained the situation, and after laughing about it, Roman said it sounded a lot like why his granddad came over from the Ukraine (their version of 'the old country'). Bob said that, in their eyes, we were refugees not fugitives, and not to worry about them.

All of our places still have the disillusion charms on them, so although you and Lavender and a very select few others know how to find us, we will remain hidden from most. If any of our other acquaintances contact you about wanting to get in touch, they can send it through Gringott's – we check in with their local outlets, but even they are not told where we are located at any given time (although I am sure their security goblins have a pretty good idea). You know, it's amazing how cooperative the goblins are when you show them respect instead of trying to order them about, like the ministry and the late unlamented Voldemort and his posse used to do as their standard procedure.

Ron, I am sorry to have to say this, but until your psychotic sister and your obsessive mother get over their delusion that I am coming back to England to make an 'honest witch' out of Ginny, I am keeping my head down. When Ginny sent her note through you (I very much doubt you read it, and strongly suspect it was written under your mother's stern eye) announcing that she was pregnant and so I was supposed to return and marry her as your mother promised her since infancy (neglecting the fact that I had not been in her presence, intimate or otherwise, for at least two years at that point, and never have been 'intimate' with her, and yes I know that the gestation period for witches is just the same as for muggle women), and your mother's note with it telling me that if I came back and apologised to the Wizengamot for being naughty, all would be forgiven, I could marry Ginny, Hermione could immediately give up her job so she can marry you and have lots of Weasley babies, and we would all be one big happy family again, I decided that, in spite of all the care and support that your family has given me over the years, I don't think I will be seeing them any time soon. Certainly not until your mother quits getting all her so-called facts from the Daily Prophet.

Actually, Ginny's claims were so ludicrous, I am not sure she wasn't slipping something past your mother, and letting me know that she was in on how ridiculous the situation was. Your sister is pretty sharp, and is almost as much a prankster as George and Fred were (and I am sure George still is. Or the old Marauders, for that matter).

At the moment, I am catching up on correspondence while my ankle heals. The ski trip was fun for the first few days, and skiing deep powder is kind of like quidditch except the skis are attached to your feet instead of up in your crotch, and there are trees sticking out through the snow. Well, the fourth day, one of the trees and I had a sudden and rather painful meeting. Fortunately, the resort (Sunset Village) has a resident healer on staff, so other than a bad sprain, I was patched up almost as quickly as Madame Pomfrey used to do. I gather that the division between the muggle and magical worlds are a lot looser here, particularly at a ski resort where everyone is there for a good time (and half the people are probably not using their real names anyway).

Your note raised an interesting point which I hadn't thought of for a while. Hermione still hasn't told me (or anyone else, it seems) exactly why she quit Hogwarts so suddenly. When I asked her about it, she just said that she decided that it wasn't for her, and to please let it go. At the time, I thought it was partly that, having spent the previous year in the tent hunting the horcruxes, she just had a different viewpoint or was now at a different point in her life than the rest of the students, but she seems deeply embarrassed about it, so that can't be it. It was also about that time when things started to get dicey with the Ministry, so I didn't think much of it at the time. But now that you mention it, it seems strange, because she won't talk about it.

You also raised a good point, that I hadn't explained why we left England in such a hurry. You know that your mother gets all her news from the Prophet, and believes most of it. I still don't understand that, given the way the prophet lied about me for those years, and she knew better, but when the only other newspaper is the Quibbler, I guess over time you forget the poor quality when the only option is worse. And although I love Luna as a friend, her Dad's paper really is dreck!

Anyway, what happened is this – I had taken my family seat in the Wizengamot, with your Dad as my proxy in the Black family seat. Hermione was working at the ministry as a (lowly) researcher in the Muggle Liaison office attached to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. In the Wizengamot, I had moved that her department be directed to research a new law promoting better equality for magical beings, and it passed. I think this was shortly after the defeat of Voldemort, and I was still the Golden Boy. Once the law was drafted, I presented it in the chamber, and moved its passage. At that point, all hell broke loose.

It seems that by that time, with old Commodus Parkinson (Pansy's dad – you know he was one of the marked Death Eaters who claimed the Imperius curse after the first war) as the Chief Warlock, the old fogeys in the chamber had started to work their usual old politics, and wanted to get back in command. It seemed that allowing a law that recognised muggle-borns to have equal rights to pure-bloods was about as far as they were willing to go. Recognising muggles are fully human with rights (such as a right not to be obliviated by a pure-blood anytime they felt like it) was too far, and declaring house elves to be people with rights, and forbidding the abuse of them, was just way over the top.

They started off by accusing Hermione of trying to subvert the society, and declaring that as a muggle-born (three actually used the term mudblood) she should not have the right to even work at the Ministry. They accused me of treason, and when it was pointed out that I was also studying to be an Auror, declared me to be inciting mutiny (what for an outsider was sedition, if you're an employee it became mutiny).

I quickly found that the 'old guard' was stronger than we had known (there are a lot who, although they didn't support Voldemort openly, certainly were sympathetic to his plans). They immediately introduced a bill declaring Hermione and me to be traitorous outlaws, that Hermione, as a muggle-born, should never had been awarded the Order of Merlin and demanding she pay back the honorarium, and then demanded that because I was the sole cause of all the damage in the war against Voldemort (on the incredible logic that, if it hadn't been for me, the war would never have happened), I should personally pay for all the damages. In conclusion, they demanded that the Ministry seize all my assets including the Order of Merlin honorarium, and all the family holdings.

This in spite of the fact that I had already spent the honorarium building hospitals and providing scholarships for war orphans.

Fortunately, the chief warlock postponed the vote until the next session the following week, which I honestly did not expect. The slimy bastard said it was to make sure that the wording was legal – I suspect to make damned sure that they could actually enforce some of the more spurious demands.

As Hermione's parents were (and are) still in Australia, she had little to leave behind. Over time, we had managed to develop a very good relationship with the goblins at Gringott's, so we put a freeze on access to our vaults by anyone except those we had specifically named, and arranged for access through their overseas branches. We got their security goblins to remove all the tracking charms that been attached to us and everything we had (87 separate spells, including a few on Hermione's underwear). We then quickly left the country. As far as I can see at this point, it will likely be permanent, unless things change a lot.

The next week, the law passed, and the Ministry went to rob us blind, and when the goblins refused to turn over even a knut, they demanded that international warrants be immediately issued for our arrest and immediate imprisonment (neglecting any mention of the need for a trial). They did it before to Sirius, so I knew they could and would do it again.

As far as I am concerned, this proved to me that we lost the war against Voldemort. Everything we fought for, bled for, what Fred died for, gone!

Of course, the Daily Prophet decided that we were thieves, mutineers, terrorists, and all manner of nastiness. Luna sent me a copy of a (supposedly) unsolicited letter to the editor, that claimed that it was from a five year old witch who had seen me kicking bunnies. When it comes to that level of drivel, you don't know whether to laugh or cry.

So, we're not coming back any time soon. If your mother thinks for a moment that I would 'apologize', or even that an apology would cure all the issues, in my opinion she is sadly and totally mistaken. Ron, I love your mother, but British wizarding society is all she knows, and I cannot be part of it any more. I gave my life for it, actually dying for it for a few minutes, and this is my reward. No thanks! Not bloody likely!

I would think that, the way they treated your father for those many years, she would have a more cynical view, but I guess not.

My ankle is starting to throb again (the medi-witch at the ski resort was not as good as Madame Pomfrey, and was a bit rushed because of other injuries coming in at the same time), so between the pain and my residual anger, I had better sign off. We're heading down to one of the plantations for the winter, either in Grenada, Jamaica or Barbados (haven't decided which one yet). You and the family would be welcome to come for Christmas. Nev and Sue and Hannah are coming, as well as the Melnychuks, so it should be a good gathering.

Nev told me that when he and Sue started to get serious, she informed him that Hannah and she had shared everything since they were toddlers, and they had decided he was going to be one of them. They all seem happy, and as the (presumptive) Lord Longbottom (there it is again, this overinflated sense of importance of the rich and powerful, not that Nev had ever claimed it himself, that's just the way the Wizengamot addresses him), he is apparently entitled to multiple wives. I gather this kind of thing has happened a number of times in European history, usually after wars when there was a sudden and serious shortage of marriageable men. Apparently, the wizarding powers-that-be found they liked the custom, and held onto it.

Regards from Hermione. Luna asked me to send her best wishes before she left on another one of her excursion to find things we've never heard of (Brazilian flibbety-jibbets, this time, whatever those are).

Love to all,

Harry Potter

**June 5, 2003**

Hello Ron,

It was great to see you and the family at the Ocho Rios place over the New Years. We were happy to see that the twins are growing like weeds, as one-year olds do given half a chance.

Congrats on the birth of Scarlet Amber. You're going to have to wait for her hair to grow in to decide which you're going to call her (imagine, the possibility of a blonde Weasley) I was sorry to hear that it was a long labour, but our best wishes are with Lavender and you as always, and were glad to hear she has recovered. A five kilo baby is just too big for a small girl like our Lav. Luna says that there is a technique that the Americans and French use called a Caesarian apparation which you might ask the healers about next time (if there is a next time, as I suspect there will be).

Nev, Sue and Hannah and what Nev calls 'the sprouts' (I swear you can take the boy out of the greenhouse, but…..) stayed for most of January. He and the girls spent a lot of time wandering around in the highlands, looking at various rare plants. Luna commented that she thought she had spotted a Jamaican foofer (whatever the hell that is), twice and wants to go back and see if she can track down its nesting area.

We're back on the farm in Saskatchewan, and have just finished the planting of the summer crops. The agriculture folks figure that it's going to be a bad year for grasshoppers (sort of like locusts, but smaller. They still can do an awful lot of damage to crops). We can cast the spells to keep them off our crops, but if we do too good a job, and all the rest of the locals had a rough time of it, people get suspicious (Statute of Secrecy and all that).

Bob says that they usually work it so that they give their own crops only partial protection, but feels that with me and Hermione to help, and Stasha and Vlad old enough and back from the Kananaskis Magical Academy (in the mountains, easier than on the prairies for hiding broom flights) for the summer, we may be able to go through the wider neighbourhood casting the protective spells over a wider area so the lack of damage will look like more of a general regional thing. Things are hard enough for farmers without the 'hoppers', and this will help the wider community get a better crop this year. In the country, you look out for your neighbours (magical or not), and here, the 'local area' would cover the area on an entire English county. This country is huge.

We're glad to hear that Ginny has started dating Viktor's little brother. I don't know if I told you, but we met Antonin and Viktor when the Bulgarian team did the demonstration tour of the Caribbean last January. If you have the pictures from their tour, or the Krums ever show them to you, take a close look at the seeker for the Grenada-Barbados-Grenadines regional team. I thought I looked silly with black makeup and dreadlocks, but the disguise seemed to pass inspection. We hosted the Bulgarians and reconnected with Viktor (swearing him to secrecy of course). Toni's seems like a good kid, and almost as talented a chaser as his brother is a seeker.

It's also great that Ginny (according to her letter) realizes that she has been trying to live your mother's dream, and not her own. I think of her as my little sister, and wish her nothing but the best, but I am glad she has come to her senses about me.

You asked how we ended up on the Prairies, as both H and I are (or were) city people. I thought I had told you about that, but I guess it slipped my mind, or it could be Hermione told Lavender, or I told Bob, or whoever told whoever. After you tell a story enough times, you're not sure who knows what.

When we left England, we travelled as muggles. Most wizards (and you know you're one of them) can't imagine spending any time as a muggle (and honestly, my friend, I have seen you try, and you do a lousy job of it). We had our papers issued by Gringott's (handy folks to know, goblins), so they showed our names as whatever we wanted them to be at the time. After very visibly booking a flight from London to Istanbul (visible at least to the pair of Aurors who were shadowing us by that time, apparently just waiting for the warrants for be issued), and a couple others they didn't see but might look up, we took a train to Glasgow, then a flight from Glasgow to New York on September 11th. That was the day some muggles seized some airplanes (the muggle flying machines your Dad would love) and crashed them into some buildings in the States, killing more people than there are wizards in all of London. Even the muggles have their wars and terrorists.

As a security measure, all flights over North America were immediately grounded, so instead of landing in New York, we landed in the Canadian province of Newfoundland. The locals (who call themselves 'Newfies', and are wonderfully hospitable people) immediately adopted us all, and we were housed in a number of very small towns in the houses of the locals. Some magical, some not, but we were pretending to be muggles, so we did not reveal who we were. After all, we didn't yet know that the Canadians were not that sympathetic to the Ministry's shenanigans, and we were trying to stay, as they say, 'under the radar'.

We were bussed a couple of hours to a little town called 'Come-By-Chance', which Hermione thought sounded very appropriate considering the circumstances. We were there for the better part of two weeks, until they had done security checks on everyone (no outstanding security watch for Hamish Black or Jane Farmer), and then bussed back to Gander to continue our flights. A lot of our fellow passengers had fallen in love with Newfoundland, and asked to stay longer, so we were given open tickets (from Gander International Airport) and our records were cleared from the boards.

Figuring that the Ministry's goons might have managed to track us that far, we took a train to St John's, and on the trip, Hamish and Jane ceased to exist. Our passports now said we were Australians named Fred George and Molly Arthur (please thank your family for the temporary use of their names), and we flew to Calgary through Montreal to get closer to the farm. We had actually booked the flight from Gander through Toronto to Los Angeles, but flew from St John's into Montreal, booked the flight to Calgary (and two to other locations, under different names and nationalities, handy things passports issued by goblins) and just didn't show up for the other flights (leaving the bookings active, so there was no hint that we changed destinations). In Calgary, I purchased a car, and also booked a train trip west, which we didn't take either. After that, a short plane ride to Regina, at which point the Australians disappeared into the Prairies, and we proceeded to the farm, where Jim Evans and Jeannie Barns took up residence in a house that no muggle has ever seen. A week or two later, I apparated to Calgary and picked up the car, driving it back to the farm – getting out of Calgary as a bit dicey at first because they drive on the right side of the road here.

We had figured that if the Ministry's boys and girls picked us up or got the Canucks involved, we had laid enough false trails that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find us. We still kept our wands handy, in case. I figured, it was only money, and if they found us, they would try to take it away (that is, steal it) anyway, so why not spend some making it harder for them.

I think that's another reason I felt the connection with the Mutiny on the Bounty story. After being called mutineers, we left everything we knew, and went looking for a place where they would never find us.

Oh, last Christmas you also asked about using magic in the Caribbean. Most of the people in the islands descended from the slaves that were brought from Africa. Although most are now Christians (and very devout, at that), they still have some of the 'old ways' that they brought with them. It was something of their background that they kept in spite of their slavery, and they kept it hidden from the white overseers and owners. Since those days, they're more open about it, and it's something that they proudly keep alive as part of their lost heritage. If anything, they have a bit of the prankster attitude about it that your brothers and sister would appreciate (putting something over on the authorities).

One other thing I found interesting about magic in the Caribbean. In Great Britain, there is only about one wizard or witch per thousand muggles, as there are about 50 thousand magicals in the UK. In the Islands, it's about 20 to one or less. Talking to some of the locals, in the slave days two hundred years ago, having some magic was a definite advantage for the involuntary immigrants (Darwinian selection at work, I guess Hermione would call it) and the population ratio shifted. It may also be that in Africa, magic wasn't despised as it was in Europe, and the original population may have had a higher ratio as well (gives Hermione something more to research in our travels).

We're getting along well with the locals, at all of the locations we've been. In a way, it's like our relationship with the goblins. If you respect them, they return the respect.

Hope to see you in the islands again this year. I suspect it may be a bit larger group this Christmas, and I'll let you know where we are going to be.

Regards and best wishes,

Harry and Hermione

**November 3, 2003**

Hello Ron,

You may have noticed that we are back on the Bad Boys and Girls list with the Wizengamot. The longer we stay hidden, the stupider they look, and the more people start to think that the way things are is not what they want. Maybe they are even remembering that some of the lies they are being told just don't jibe with what they themselves remember happening – one can hope that the sleepers may awaken. Lee Granger (Hermione's dad) suggests looking at muggle history, showing that when things get really bad, there is often a revolution (or what he called a coup-d'etat).

Our contacts have told us that there is evidence that our friends (and that includes you) are under increasing Ministry surveillance. At Lee's urging, I have decided to use my connections (and money) to do something about it. The ministry's budgets may find they are getting audited more often, and that the accounting may show some discrepancies that they had wished to keep hidden (even if we have to insert some). Again, some good relations and help from some short, oppressed, and rather pissed off people, of two races, comes in handy.

I suggest you talk to George about arranging for some diversions for the ones they have tracking you and your family. I have arranged for 'accidents' for those tracking some others of our friends – nothing lethal, you understand, just enough for them to remember who and what they are dealing with. After all, we (all of us) were the ones who took down the Death Eaters when the Ministry couldn't (or wouldn't).

Because to the enhanced 'scrutiny', we have modified the holiday plans. If you and the family still wish to come, we have arranged for International Floo connections, at my cost of course. Go to Gringott's and talk to the one with the scar which destroyed his right eye. He or she (with goblins, it's hard to tell) will conduct you to their floo connection and give you some documents. At your next stop, you will meet someone you know, who will accompany you to the next transfer point, and so on. I won't tell you who, where or how many stops you have, but I have arranged for transportation, food and lodging at a number of places, most of which you are not going to.

Things are getting ugly, and I fear they will get worse before they get better.

As I mentioned, some of this is because of discussion we have been having with Hermione's parents. Sally commented that I seem to be hung up on the Mutiny of the Bounty thing, with us cast as the mutineers. She suggested that we revise our outlook, and consider ourselves as Captain Bligh. He didn't give up and moan about how he had been kicked out by people who wanted to protect their cushy lifestyle. He took command and control, and led his loyal people across a thousand leagues of hostile waters, through his intelligence, his skills, his leadership and his personality.

Once he got back to England, he resumed an illustrious career, and when he was governor of New South Wales in Australia, he had another mutiny when he tried to clean up the corrupt government there. By the time he died, he was a vice-admiral, the second highest active rank in the navy. She suggested that we did have our problems, but if we just give up, then 'they' had won. The way she put it was that we should get off our butts and flight back – we have the resources, we just need the will.

It also turns out that most of what people know about Captain Bligh was based on a 'diary' written by one of the (supposed) mutineers while he was in prison wanting for his court-martial, where they could have sentenced him to death. It was in his interest to make Bligh out to be an unspeakable tyrant, and himself as an innocent victim of his superiors (Fletcher Christian and the others) plotting against this monster. The muggle books and the movies are based on this diary where he wrote quoting 'verbatim' from conversations supposedly held three years before, and half a world away (and being a muggle, this without a pensieve to 'jog' his memory). This made a great story, and the papers ran with it.

How amazing, the newspapers printing lies because it made a good story. That could never happen, could it (haha!)? I have learned, through bitter experience, to not always believe the 'official' story.

It also turns out, from more respectable sources, that Bligh was actually much more lenient than was typical for a captain in the day, and his major problem was that the crew, after spending half a year enjoying a luxurious life (including what was termed 'sexual hospitality'), really didn't want to get back on an uncomfortable boat and go back to a strictly disciplined life on the way back to England. This was probably the first time they had ever enjoyed anything in their lives, and they weren't keen to give it up.

Anyway, Bligh and a bunch of loyal men were put in a small boat, where through discipline and his absolute brilliance as a navigator, they sailed for over three thousand miles of open ocean to safety.

Sally suggested that we look on ourselves as Bligh – brilliant people (I think she was talking about Hermione here – she couldn't possibly mean me) set adrift by our society who didn't want to (as she put it) straighten up and fly right!

Lee suggested that we were just (as he put it) spinning our wheels, and that I was just sitting on my inheritances, instead of doing something about it. He said that I should get over my sulking about how they didn't appreciate me, and do something. He has a point, so I am starting to put together plans – I think the mutiny is going to come home to the tyrants after all. I didn't run away before, and I guess it's time to stop running now.

Mate, don't ever get Hermione mad at you. She has started making lists (big surprise, right?) and plans of who to go after, and how to make their lives a living hell. I've seen some of her ideas, and I think she would be in the running to be the next Dark Lady, if she put her mind to it. Smart people can be scary!

I think we may need some Weasley input on some of her ideas. Between experienced pranking abilities and some rather special work connections, your family also has their own long-term bones to pick for the way they have been treated

Can you please check with Bill and Fleur to see what they know about casting the Fidelius charm? I think it would be rather a lot of fun to have some of the bigwigs suddenly find they can't remember how to get home (or to a bathroom), or find Gringott's and their money (or for that matter, the Ministry offices), don't you? I mentioned this to our contact at Gringott's local branch, who said he would pass on the suggestion.

Ron, you never want to see a goblin laugh. Trust me on this.

On a somewhat lighter note, I found out a little more of why Hermione dislikes/hates flying on a broom. She laughs about it now, but it was really painful to her at the time, in several ways.

Do you remember our first lesson with Madame Hooch? We were marched out into the school courtyard in our school uniform robes, and told this was our first flying lesson. No instruction on how to control a broom, how to turn, or land, or whatever.

Hermione tells me that, for muggles learning to fly an airplane, they spend weeks in what is called 'ground school' learning the principles of flight, before ever taking the controls of an actual machine. She says Madame Hooch's approach was like you driving your Dad's flying Anglia the first time, and being told to drive down a major highway in heavy high-speed traffic.

Hermione has told me that she thought at first that this was another example of bias against the muggle-born, because children with a magical family (like yours) would have had lessons on basic broom flying. Then she saw Neville's disastrous first flight, and realized that even most of the pure-bloods had no idea what they were doing.

She says that that's when she started to realize that, in spite of her anticipation of the magical world being a wonderful place where she could excel with her abilities and she would learn wonderful things, Snape was _not_ an exception and, other than McGonagall and Flitwick, the quality of the teaching at Hogwarts was uniformly abysmal. They may be good at things themselves, but they couldn't teach a fish to get wet! Makes you wonder what it takes to get a Mastery in various magical arts. It also called into question how incompetent Dumbledore had to be, to have hired and keep all these morons on staff for years

This was on top of the way you, and to my shame I have to admit, I and the rest of the students, were treating her at the time. She was devastated.

On top of this (and this is what took so long for her to accept as a bit ironic), you will remember that the girls' uniforms included skirts. When they mounted the brooms, some of the girls tucked their skirts up between their legs, so they had a bit of padding against the broom handles, and some didn't. With the skirt tucked, the additional material allowed a firm grip on the broom with their legs. If they did not tuck, the broom handle was in direct contact with their knickers if they were wearing any (Hermione has implied that some of the girls didn't. I won't mention any names. I didn't ask).

Hermione was a non-tucker. When the broom began to move as she tried to kick off (to use Madame Hooch's phrase), the handle slipped a bit. Her broom had not been all that well maintained, and she got a lot of slivers in her backside. Because people had been making fun of her and generally being nasty, she didn't want to complain, and so she was in serious pain through the whole lesson. Every time she moved, the splinters dug in deeper and deeper. She was in agony, but because of how she was being treated by even other Gryffindors, she didn't want to appear weak and so she was stumbling around in pain, crying quietly.

At the time, she didn't really know where the hospital wing was, and by that time she was having trouble walking anyway. Finally, a prefect found her crying in the hall with blood running down her legs, and helped her to see Madame Pomfrey. There she found that the slivers had nailed her underpants to her bottom, and she needed to go to the bathroom quite badly by this point, and couldn't get them off, or even sit for that matter. Pomfrey had to cut her pants off her to get at the wounds and apply the appropriate healing salves and spells.

While the salves soaked in and the wounds healed, she lay on her stomach with her bare bum exposed to the air, and to (she thought) the world. Every time the door to the infirmary opened, she was terrified that someone might see her in that position, and says she hasn't blushed that hard since.

The ironic part is that it was only later when the spells had worked their magic that she could look around and see that Madame Pomfrey had put screens all around her bed, and that she had been at no risk of exposure. She said that, there she was laid out for the world to see, working up the best embarrassment and humiliation she possibly could, only to find it was completely wasted.

Hardly surprising that she had no strong desire to ride another broom. Every time she thought of giving it another try, the pain and embarrassment came back to her mind

This all came out while Luna was passing through. She had been watching the telly and seeing what she thought was a documentary of witches in America. It was a fictional (we think) comedy show called 'Bewitched' about a witch who marries a muggle, and he has to deal with her bizarre relatives (think of your Aunt Muriel, or Luna's dad) while hiding the truth from their muggle friends and neighbours. On the introduction to the show, they show the witch riding her broom side-saddle. Luna had to try it (rum had been definitely involved that evening) and she kept falling off, of course with all of us laughing uproariously. Hermione tried it and found it quite easy to do – I gather that having both legs on one side of the broom allows her a stronger grip.

Hermione figured that she could get a side-saddle like 'ladies' use to ride horses, and modify it, something like the saddles we use on quidditch brooms for better control. She says that she always felt inadequate not being comfortable riding a broom when all her dorm-mates were quite proficient, because all the muggle stories of witches (which she read when she was a little girl) showed witches riding brooms, and she felt that to be a 'proper' witch, she should be able to do so too.

That's our Hermione. She feels incomplete if she can't do everything others can, and better.

We got hold of a side-saddle from one of the equestrian supply places, and she worked on it for almost a week. Now, when I go out for a fly, she's right there with me. She's not up to quidditch standards of agility, but she's comfortable, and is enjoying it.

Luna tried the side-saddle and is quite proficient at it, but says she still prefers the 'straddle' position. She says that, when she leans forward at just the right angle, it feels Really! Good! I didn't ask why. You don't ask questions when you're really not sure you want to know the answer.

Hope to see you over Christmas. Luna says hi.

Best wishes,

Harry and Hermione

**February 2, 2004**

Hello again Ron,

Well, things have certainly changed for me. I suppose I should have seen it coming, but you remember how clueless I was with girls.

Hermione and I are engaged to be married.

Now, to make a short story long, Lee and Sally Granger stayed with us at the Queensland place for a week or so after you all left, and we had some really deep and disturbing discussions.

The first bit of rather shocking news is that, in their hearts, the Grangers don't really consider Hermione their daughter! The obliviation had robbed them of any real emotional connection with her. They say that, intellectually, they can accept her, but they don't have that visceral connection that a parent would with a child.

Sally says she has no recollection of giving birth to Hermione, nor having a little girl running around the house, growing up and going on holidays when she came home from Hogwarts. Nothing!

Lee said that, when they first got to Australia, they understood that they were in some kind of witness protection program which was why they had different names than they remembered having had before. With that in mind, they made no effort to connect with anyone in England.

When Hermione first contacted them, they were extremely leery of her. They worried that somehow, the gang they were fleeing from had found them, and that they were going to be killed. The fact that this young woman seemed to know a lot about them just indicated that the gang had good information gathering skills. Hermione's reassurances and descriptions of the situation were taken as them being set up for a fall.

However, the more time she spent with them, the more her stories seemed to have some basis in reality. Apparently, the way Hermione laughs is exactly the same as Sally's laugh. Her bushy hair looked like Lee's when he grew his hair longer in the late 60's, and I gather looked like his mother's bushy hair. One day, she dropped something, and cussed under her breath, in exactly the same way that Lee did and like some of his old shipmates had done.

They told us that, like Captain Bligh (sorry, but this keeps coming up over and over in my life), they felt like they were cast adrift. Eventually, they came to the conclusion that Hermione wanted nothing from them except their acceptance, even though they felt no inherent connection to her.

Lee told me that he has a really hard time with what Hermione had done to them. It was (in his opinion) the ultimate betrayal that a child could do to her parents. He said that he could understand intellectually why she had felt she had to do it (after all, the Death Eaters had some pretty powerful mind readers among them, and we couldn't be sure that a mere memory block would do the job that was needed) and that they had agreed to it at the time, but he also said that he had to admit that, in his guts, he still hates her a bit for doing it. He said that, although from the evidence he had seen she apparently _was_ his daughter (in part reserving judgement on that), she has effectively stolen his daughter and a good part of his life from him.

Sally said (through tears) that being a mother was one of the most important things in a woman's life, and Hermione had stolen that from her, even with the best intentions and for the best reasons. She quoted the old saying that the road to hell was paved with good intentions, and it would have been easier for them (not better, just easier) if Hermione had never come back to re-connect with them.

As you can imagine, this devastated Hermione. I think she cried for a week solid.

I think we have come to the point where they like her for herself, even if they are really not sure that she actually is their daughter. We can be friends, even if not family. She is just going to have to accept that there are residual issues from the war – I suppose it's better than if I had to show them her grave, but by how much, I'm just not sure any more.

Another issue came up in our discussions. Us. Hermione and me.

I was out walking with Lee on day, and he asked me point-blank if Hermione and I had slept together. I mentioned that we had shared a bed occasionally, mostly just hugging to stave off nightmares. He looked at me with a disgusted face, and asked if I had banged her yet! I sputtered, while he laughed at me. He asked me what I thought was wrong with her then that I hadn't, or alternately, what was wrong with me!

When I (continuing to sputter) said I didn't want to risk losing my best friend by doing something wrong, he paused and looked at me closely.

He then said "Harry, I have been watching you two closely, and I've listened to what Hermione has said about who you were when we were getting together. You know our reluctance to accept you and Hermione at face value, given what has happened and what you have told us, so I have been carefully watching what you do and how you do things since we met. As a dentist, my training included the signs to look for, and you show them all. The way you will do anything for a friend and ask almost nothing for yourself. The scars on your back that I saw when we went swimming."

"I can see that you were an abused child who was not allowed to have friends. When you went to school, you were lied to, lied about, and mistrusted. Now, the wizarding society, which you thought was going to be wonderful, has betrayed you. You are almost completely unable to trust anyone, and would kill yourself rather than risk the friendship of someone you _do_ trust. Harry, she loves you. She wants you, as a friend, as her companion, as her husband, as her lover. But she will not push you, because she cannot risk you pushing her away. She lost us, she lost the magical world that she expected so much from, she cannot afford to lose you either. You are both emotionally paralyzed by your fear of losing the other. Harry, go to her."

It turned out that Sally was telling Hermione essentially the same things, except with a bit different slant. Hermione said that her mother started off by asking if she had shagged me yet. When Hermione blushed and started shaking her head, she asked "Why the hell not? He's hot. He's available. He's rich. You've been essentially living together for almost seven years. You're not getting any younger, and I can see he loves you but he's terrified of hurting you. God, if I wasn't married to Lee, I'd jump his bones myself! Get on with it, girl! Hermione, I can see that he loves you, but he is scared. He needs your help to see that you love him too."

Hermione and I had a long talk, actually, a couple (okay, a lot) of long talks (all the while being laughed at by the Grangers).

As I said, we are now engaged to be married. Hermione wants a church wedding, and the church in St George requires a six month residency in the parish, so we are looking to go to the "The Orchard' on Grenada next summer to live there for the necessary time, and then marry in the little church while everyone is there at Christmas.

Please come. Ron, I would be very honoured if you would be my best man.

One bit of strangeness about this. When I let the Melnychuks in on the news, it turns out that they had been under the impression that we already were married, and Hermione has just kept her own surname. Stasha Melnychuk sent a note saying that, if she had known that we weren't married, she would have proposed to me herself. As it is, she says she wants to invoke a time-honoured farming practice of bringing in a neighbour's prize bull to 'service' the cows and improve the breed. As she thinks I might miss the point, she stated quite explicitly that, regardless of the impending wedding, she expects me to father a child or two with her. She even says that her family agrees – I gather that, in 'the old days', it was quite common for the local nobility to have their way with the daughters of the peasants. Whether or not it was in keeping with what the nobility _said_ their religion believed, that was just the way it was for the lower classes.

I don't think I have been this flummoxed since Hagrid showed up at the Dursleys' and knocked the cottage door off its hinges – I am not sure whether to be offended or flattered. I showed the note to Hermione, and I still haven't figured out how she feels about it – I think she feels I should be completely offended by the idea, and is upset that I was more amused than annoyed. I get the impression it is something that we are going to have a long talk about at some point. A very long talk.

Love to Lavender and the kids,

Harry and Hermione

**October 31, 2004**

Hello Ron,

There is an old curse. 'May the gods grant your wishes.' Ho boy, were they right! Not that that is all bad, far from it, just really unexpected.

As ever, October 31st is the day when things change in my life. Although now, I have to add September 7th to the list.

Hermione and I are at 'The Orchard' for the summer and to fulfill the residency requirement for the local church. We have booked it for our wedding two days after Christmas, so that Hermione can have her church wedding in an Anglican Church, as she dreamed of as a little girl.

We came down in June, leaving the farm in Saskatchewan this year, but inviting the Melnychuks for the wedding and a winter vacation. I gather this is a big trend with muggles, what they call a 'destination wedding'.

By August, I was getting seriously bored with island life. The staff on the farm had things well in hand, and the summer heat and humidity was more than I was used to. I started wishing for something to happen. Well, I got what I wished for.

In August, the old wizard of what they now call 'African descent' that they called 'The Weatherman', died. I gather he was around two hundred years old, and had been the main man doing weather spells for the last century (after his own father passed over). Consequently, there had been only one hurricane hit Grenada in the last century, and that was when the Weatherman had been sick. Well, Hurricane Ivan came to visit in a big way.

Ninety percent of the buildings on the island were damaged or destroyed, and more than thirty people were killed out of a population of only 100 thousand. About eighty percent of the nutmeg trees (one of the main sources of income on this island, and according to Luna, one of the world's best nargle infestations) were destroyed.

The national prison was destroyed and most of the prisoners were running loose for a couple weeks until most of them were rounded up (I have been helping the locals with some security wards and such). One thing that might seem weird is that about 20 years ago, they had a totalitarian revolution, and the Americans sent in a military 'intervention' (political-speak by the victors for an invasion). The only prisoners who stayed at the destroyed prison were the ones who were there for 'political' crimes during the revolution, whose appeals would have been thrown out if they had run away.

Shortly before the hurricane struck, Luna showed up in a total panic. She insisted that we do the protective spells to save the Grenadian nargle population, which apparently are unique in the world and in serious danger of extinction (by the way, last year, she achieved her Mastery in Cryptozoology). It turns out that the Lovegood family has been involved with weather magic for generations, and Luna considers some of the weather elementals as personal friends – she only has to demonstrate influencing a major weather event to earn her Mastery in Climatomancy as well.

She knew that I had not returned to Hogwarts for seventh year, but that Hermione had (for a while) and expected Hermione to be familiar with the weather spells that they taught in seventh year advanced charms. To deal with a hurricane would take a group of the most powerful wizards and witches working together, and in her mind, we three were the ones to do it. She was very shocked when Hermione admitted that that class was precisely why she had quit Hogwarts suddenly!

The next several hours were filled with intense conversation, during which I learned, among other things (I am using point form to try and summarize what was a very complicated and confusing day):

In her childhood Hermione was taught by the church that sex outside marriage (they call it fornication) is very wrong – this in spite of the founder of the Church of England being quite adept at it. I guess hypocrisy is one of those constants of human behaviour, particularly for those in power.

From her parents, she learned that sex outside marriage happens frequently, as long as it is during a loving relationship (often shortly before marriage). Usually forgivable, and the full-sized 'premature' baby delivered shortly after the wedding is just an example of how efficient new brides can be.

Also from her parents, she learned that sex outside love was Wrong (with the capital 'W' very strongly expressed to her). This in spite of, or perhaps because of, their coming of age during years when 'free love' was not uncommon. Sally has said (in my presence) that in her experience (or rather that of her friends) free love can turn out to be extremely expensive. She didn't elaborate (but of course Hermione is now extremely curious).

Consequently, even though Hermione and I have shared a bed many times, we have not 'slept together' until recently. I know, too much information.

In the muggle world, in most including Britain but not all societies, marriages of multiple people together is officially frowned upon. However, it is also common for a married man to have mistresses (more hypocrisy). Same goes for married women.

In the magical world, in the higher society families and most pure-bloods (as far as I know, except for your family – I don't know much about the families of other magicals) it is common for marriages to be arranged, and for the most part be relatively loveless affairs set up to keep property and status in the families. The wife in such a marriage has to make sure that any offspring are definitively from her husband because of the property and succession laws, but the man can fool around, and can acknowledge one of his bastard children as his legitimate heir is he feels like it. Use of contraceptive spells is very widespread in an effort to find love if the arranged marriage does not provide it.

As the head of two families (the Potters and as Sirius' heir, the Blacks) in the magical world, I will be required by law to have two wives, one for each House. As Head of the House, I could also have mistresses or concubines, bound to one or other of the houses, but not both. Same reasons as above.

This requirement will make trying to live in both the magical and muggle worlds complicated, to say the least.

Hermione was rather unhappy about this.

Hermione had returned to Hogwarts to finish her seventh year, not because she needed her NEWT levels to get most jobs, but because she would need them to pursue her Mastery in any of the subjects.

While she was attending Hogwarts, she was also applying for various research or professional level positions at the Ministry, and other organisations in the magical world. It soon became very apparent (sometimes explicitly so) that, as a muggle-born, her chances of getting a good position or advancing to a senior position were nonexistent. Her chance of getting an apprenticeship towards her Mastery would be limited to finding a Master who would accept her – she was informed that this would be unlikely, because other than a very few, any Master who took her on would harm his or her own reputation. This, of course, reduced the point of continuing to get her NEWTs.

The advanced charms course dealt with very powerful charms, including spells involved in influencing natural events such as weather. These spells required direct contact and communication with nature elementals, which are sort of the spirits of the forces.

Nature spirits must be addressed while in a natural state, that is, nude.

The classes required the students to gradually become comfortable being nude in mixed groups. Then the fun started.

For the weather charms, there are six levels of intensity:

For the first level, which involved things like finding out what the weather was scheduled to be (elementals apparently have work plans assigned to them to follow – union rules), the supplicant must be nude.

For the second level, to access the more powerful spells, the witch or wizard must bring themselves to a state of sexual excitement, with the spell cast before or without orgasm

For the third level, the spell is cast at the moment of climax. I gather this takes some practice, as one (according to Luna) tends to get distracted.

For the fourth level, two witches, wizards or a mixed pair excite each other to orgasm, but do not engage in intercourse. Again, the spell is cast during climax.

At the fifth level, they engage in intercourse. Contraception can be used at this level.

At the sixth level, more than two are involved. Contraception spells cannot be used at this level. This level is only used to directly influence a major natural event, such as mitigating or stopping a volcanic explosion or very serious weather phenomena. In order to operate at this level, the practitioners must be open to all the forces of creation, including procreation.

Hermione was very uncomfortable with this entire process. Luna seemed to accept it, having heard about the practices from her mother (another important difference between the muggle and magical worlds)

During the class where they were to learn level four, Professor McGonagall assigned partners arbitrarily (apparently, her earlier demonstrations of proper technique had been _very_ explicit, which Hermione found very embarrassing coming from the witch she had respected so much). She said that, to be proficient in the case of emergency situations, which is when these spells would be used, students needed to be able to work with whoever was available, and this is where they learned that skill. To the students, this meant that they might be required to have intercourse with someone that they might not even like (or couldn't stand).

Before the classes to practice the next level, Hermione overheard some of the young wizards in the class. Apparently, their families were not pleased that we had defeated the Dark Lord and his bunch, and they had lost a lot of prestige and power because of it. They were joking about 'shagging the muggle' and not using contraception, and how pissed off I would be when my mudblood found out what is was like to have a 'real wizard' between her legs and had a pure-blood bastard, or how they should take turns with her. I gather Draco had not been that unusual after all.

This is when Hermione went to McGonagall, informed her that she was withdrawing from Hogwarts immediately, and that the comments of the other students had shown her that the magical world was not worth the price we and they had paid the previous year, because it was obvious to her that Hogwarts was still infested with the bigotry and hatreds that we had fought and bled for, that Fred Weasley had died for, that she had now lost all respect for the witch who had been her favorite teacher, and goodbye!

McGonagall sat there with her mouth hanging open as Hermione left her office.

After several hours, and many tears, with me sitting on our couch in the gazebo by the pool, holding two weeping witches, I felt Luna stiffen, and sit up. I could tell she had come to a conclusion. I also could tell I wasn't necessarily going to like it, and I could predict that Hermione wasn't going to either.

She then proposed a plan to address all the problems. She offered herself as my second wife, and Hermione's first (I gather magicals are more accepting of this sort of arrangement than muggles in a lot of the world. Given what I have seen of how people treat each other and the way most of my life has gone, although it's not really my thing, why would I begrudge anyone finding any sort of happiness in their life). That way, we would be married in the magical world, I would have the two wives I would need to placate the old Ancient House rules, we would not be having sex outside marriage, and we would have the three most powerful magicals on the island to try hold off the coming storm.

She pointed out to Hermione that she was not intending to be her rival, but her helpmate, as she proposed to marry, or pledge herself, to Hermione as well as to me. If nothing else, Hermione had talked me into (or coerced me into, depending on your viewpoint) starting the DA and teaching her how to fight, and this saved her life so she figured that, even if she hadn't liked Hermione (pointing out that she most certainly did, as Hermione and I were two of the only people who had always treated her with respect), she owed Hermione big time.

I was in a bit of shock, but Hermione was shaking her head, saying that's not how it is supposed to work! Another problem of trying to exist in the two worlds.

Myself, my home life had been so screwed up, with my first and formative impressions of married life being Vernon and Petunia Dursley (and the idea that _anything_ had to be better), that I was willing to consider it. I figured that if I have to have a second wife, Luna would be a lot better than most of my alternate options (imagine me proposing to Pansy Parkinson, in an attempt to get in good with the pure-bloods).

All that evening, I could see that Hermione was mulling it over in her mind. I saw her glancing at Luna, and have a brief smile, and then shake her head, and then repeat the process looking at me, and then again at Luna, and so on. The smile stayed a bit longer each time, but she still ended up shaking her head. She looked like she was slowly talking herself into it. I knew she liked Luna, but this much?

About midnight, Hermione sat up straight, and looked at Luna and me, and said that she accepted Luna's suggestion. When I shook my head and said that she did not have to do this, she gently nodded, and told me that she herself chose to accept. She pointed out that, when she did not tell her parents the whole story about the troll in first year, she had chosen the magical world over the mundane one. At that time and later, she put aside rules of the muggle world, such as the fact that cars and brooms can't fly, when people die they go away forever (or until they are reincarnated, according to some religions – anyway they don't hang around your school), that elves and fairies and dragons didn't exist, and even if your classmates hated you their parents were not planning to kill you. She said that the 'one man-one woman' rule might be another of those rules.

She also pointed out that, as I was a 'wanted criminal', the powers-that-be in Britain were probably looking for any excuse to overturn my designation of Teddy as my heir (ruling my will and my accepting Andromeda back into the Black family as invalid – those guys make a habit of making the 'illegal' legal), and should some accident befall me without a 'true' heir, the Headship would fall to the next nearest Black relative, that is, Draco Malfoy.

I mentioned that from what I had heard, Draco had been behaving himself, to which she pointed out that being a Slytherin, was it more likely he had turned good, or that he was just collecting enough friends in high places to drive through what he really wanted? If so, Teddy's life would be in even more danger than it already was.

Then she smiled, and said that Luna had always been kind of fun to have around. She looked at me with big puppy-dog eyes and stating that Luna had followed us home, asked if we could keep her.

How could I refuse?

She turned to Luna and asked what we needed to do to perform the ceremony and cast the spells. Luna explained the simple but beautiful magical binding ritual, and we all stood holding hands and chanted the invocations, and we spoke the pledges of lifetime bonding (pledging ourselves to the others in good times and bad, in good health and poor, in times of plenty and times of little, in times of hope and times of despair, and so on).

Just an hour later, Ivan arrived as a Category 3 hurricane and continuing to strengthen. When the front eyewall of the hurricane went over and the eye was over the island (in the eye, the winds are calm, and some people figure the storm is over, not knowing that the back wall has even higher winds and it is even worse), we went outside to survey the damage.

I found that nargles lose their ability to be invisible, when they are dying.

We wandered for a couple minutes among the torn down nutmeg trees, looking at the piles of small furry bodies littering the ground. Luna was crying at the loss and Hermione looked sick. Actually, I was just as upset by the deaths of all the nargles – I guess the 'people-saving-thing' applies to non-humans as well. I know it did with Dobby.

We stripped, and went through the spells (of an extremely personal nature) to insist the hurricane stop. As a result, I could hear 'his' voice talking to us.

'Ivan' turned out to be a really nasty piece of work (imagine Mad-Eye Moody with a really bad hangover, and then being angry as well, and then having someone kick him in his good leg and other areas). 'He' agreed to reduce the additional damage to Grenada by half of what he had originally planned (I gather he meant to sweep it completely clean of people and vegetation), at the trade-off of strengthening to a Category four. 'He' said that, because we had not only performed the rituals properly, but had in addition sacrificed two virgins to accomplish it (Hermione blushed when he mentioned this), he would veer away from Jamaica a bit, and limit his damage. He had been intending to become a category 6 (I didn't know that the scale went beyond 5), and to outdo his sister Catarina and his younger sisters Katrina and Rita (who are scheduled for the next year) but because of our efforts, he would not.

We then went inside quickly, as the rear eye wall was starting to come over the island.

After 'he' left, we assisted on helping clean up some of the damage, and cast some security spells because of the escaped convicts. Hermione insisted it was the least she could do, given that her original reticence and the delay had probably contributed to the severity of the damage as we had been too late to redirect the storm completely away (whether or not we could have done so, I think that girl is going to need a lot of hugs in the near future to get over her feelings of guilt). That's how we spent the rest of September and the early part of October.

We then apparated over to Jamaica to help with some of the clean-up there. Today while shifting fallen trees and such, Luna cut her arm on some downed branches, and said she hadn't felt really well for a few days either. So we went to a healer for treatment and a checkup. When she and the healer came out of the cottage, she had a small smug smile on her face, and announced that the healer had informed her that, because of our spell activities, she now had 'a bun in the oven', to use the muggle phrase. While she and Hermione hugged at the news, the healer looked mildly offended, and said that in Jamaica, they didn't eat buns – they eat 'patties' (remember those spicy pies you had last time down here).

So, to end this overly long letter, October 31st, my life has changed again. It will be another month before we find out whether 'Patty' is going to be a Patricia or a Patrick, but I am finally going to have a family (or two) of my own. I am married (in the magical world at least) to two very beautiful, very brilliant and very powerful witches, my wives each have a wife and a very confused husband.

And if you think Hermione's plans to revise the British magical world are scary, you should see some of what Luna is coming up with!

To make things legal in the muggle world, Luna and I got married by a justice of the peace in Jamaica, and Hermione and I will be married in the little church in St George at Christmas time, almost as originally planned. Thank you for agreeing to be my best man.

And I finally found out why Hermione quit Hogwarts, the place where she thought she would fulfill her dreams but discovered the unpleasantnesses of our world.

So, a normal life? It seems I have no idea what constitutes normal, and am unlikely to find out any time soon.

Love from Harry, Hermione and Luna (now Mrs. Potter-Black)

**June 10, 2005**

Hello Ron,

You recall when you told me that fatherhood would change me and I laughed? Well, I have changed, and I have added a new word to my vocabulary. Diapers! And here I thought the 'Scourgify' spell was just for washing dishes.

The in-joke went on for so long that it became 'official policy', so I am letting you know that Patricia Selena Hermione Potter-Black was born last week. Luna was attended by her husband, her wife, a local witch-midwife, and three house elves. The delivery room was very crowded. Patty and Luna are doing well.

When I came out of the birthing room, Luna's Dad (Xenophilius 'Call me Phil' Lovegood), Hermione's parents, and the Melnychuks were there with bottles of champagne. Sally and Lee are still not too happy about Hermione being part of a plural marriage, but understood the reasons (and I think are a bit delighted that Hermione refused to engage in 'that sort of behaviour' outside the bonds of marriage, however weird they are in our mixed worlds). Sally even whispered to me that this may finally convince them that Hermione is really their daughter. I think they are pleased to have a grandchild, sort of.

Hermione has come to terms with having an extra wife, as she has found that Luna is in no way a rival. The two spend a lot of time discussing all manner of stuff that I have no clue about, and seem to enjoy each other's company a lot. Also, with Luna still travelling a lot (until the last few months when it became inconvenient and uncomfortable), she still had exclusive use of me most of the time.

Also, Hermione has a bit of a smug grin a lot of the time, and her diet now includes pickles on top of ice cream, which I am told is a common sign of impending motherhood. She says she is just practicing with Patty (when Luna is away). She says that her casting the lactation spell has worked quite well (as well as being rather attractive to her husband), she enjoys nursing the baby, and she is looking forward to having her own as well.

I told her that, if it's a boy, I would like to name him 'Sirius Lee James Potter' – when she asked me why, I told her that Remus said that was one of my mother's favourite saying when she got exasperated with my Dad (try saying it fast). This way, we would acknowledge my godfather, his two grandfathers and my mother, all at once.

You know, my attitude about the British wizarding society is also changing. If it was just me they were after, or trying to rob, I might just walk away and say 'screw them' (in spite of all our previous and current plans, which would satisfy the latent vindictive potential Dark Lord that they seem to think I am). But I see now that they are trying to steal my children's heritage and their future as well. That is unacceptable!

I also have to tell you that Stashia Melnychuk has been looking at me with a predatory grin, the like of which I have not seen since I watched them put some mice in the enclosure with my old friend the Burmese python. Hermione and Luna both laughed at me when I made this observation.

It should be obvious that we are back north at 'The Farm'. We have been requested to come back to Grenada during hurricane season, but I had promised the Melnychuks to help during the growing season. We have set up the floo to go between 'The Farm' and 'The Orchard', if needed, with the covert cooperation of the Canadians and the Grenadians to set up an international floo link without informing the Customs and Duties branches of either government (and certainly without the knowledge of the British Ministry).

I find that I am starting to think of Britain as 'someplace else', and not really home any more. However, we have roots there, and interests which I am not really willing to give up without a fight.

We have been working towards some more ways to make life difficult for the purists and rich idiots 'back home', and ways to spread the news of things people can do to assist. I was thinking that it would be hard to go with word-of-mouth, as you and our other friends are under surveillance by the Ministry, and the Prophet is firmly under their thumbs, when Luna suggested using the Quibbler.

Hermione guffawed at this, saying that everybody knew that the Quibbler was a load of rubbish. Luna smiled and handed her a copy. Hermione looked over the articles concerning the Great Muggle Conspiracy and the kraken sightings off the Cornish coast, when Luna took the paper from her hands, turned it upside down, and handed it back. The text had changed!

Luna smiled and pointed out that the upper class idiots (her terms were a little more scatological – Hermione has me practicing bigger words) were so hide-bound that they would never think of turning a newspaper upside down, but the more intelligent of the wizarding world knew that the Quibbler was charmed to show the _real_ news that way. She reminded us that when we first met her, she was holding the paper upside down but had explained to us that she had learned to read it that way when her parents read across the table from her. She pointed out that, having just met us, she had not known yet if we were trust-worthy.

And Ron, before you say that you and your family had never been told about this trick, Luna pointed out that your family had been in the Order of the Phoenix since before you and I were born. Luna stated that her father had been tracking the various people in what he had called 'Dumbledore's private club' for many years. He (and she) didn't know how much information was shared, and Dumbles might have trusted them, but the Lovegoods sure didn't (would you have trusted Mundungus with your secrets? I certainly wouldn't – give the man enough beer or gold, and he would have told the Death Eaters the size of your underwear and your wife's bra size.) They also knew that Voldie's bunch had some pretty potent legilimens in it, and the Death Eaters were pretty well informed as to who was in the order. I gather occulmency is a pretty specialized skill, and I know you never mentioned that your family practiced it. Consequently, no one connected with the Order in any way was told about the reversing paper spell.

Luna also suggested that with some of the odd things that went on (such as not giving me any special fighting training, leaving me in an abusive household with the Dursleys, not telling me about the prophecy or the horcruxes until it was almost too late, letting Umbridge torture me, etc.), her father had started to wonder what Dumbledore's real agenda was, or if the old man had just gone completely senile. I gather that there was a lot of respect there, but for a man over two hundred years old a wandering mind was not out of the question. When you looked at Dumbledore's actions, or rather inactions, it starts to look very very suspicious (Constant Vigilance!). Again, who would you trust with your life?

Her father had carefully nurtured a reputation for being a bit of an oddball during the first Voldy war, to hide in plain sight. When the bad guys cannot see you as a threat, you are less of a target. Merlin, wizards are dumb! (Hermione says her Dad used to use the phrases 'dumber than a bag of rocks', 'sharp as a hammer', 'as clever as sheep shit', and more colourful ways of saying the same thing).

Anyway, we have been consulting with the goblins at Gringotts (Jamaica and Calgary branches) and have put articles in the Quibbler, suggesting ways that wizards and witches can shield their galleons from Ministry 'interference'. Nothing blatantly seditious, but certainly having an interesting effect on Ministry revenues.

Like many upper-class muggles, most of the hierarchy of the wizarding world have been living on debt, borrowing money to support their lavish lifestyles. It is to the point where the sources of the loans are as dependent on the charade continuing so the whole house of cards doesn't collapse – either that, or they consider the influence they buy from the powerful worth the investment. I have started buying up some of this old debt, such as the mortgages on their houses, and so on.

Hermione was managed to get in touch with the cultural leaders of the house elves, and yes, they have their own societies. It turns out that house elves only require an hour of sleep a day (or night), and so have a lot of time when we are asleep (which is when they cleaned up at Hogwarts). From her efforts at the Ministry working to eliminate house elf abuse (after discovering that elf 'bondage' is not actually slavery but their magical need to bond and to work), there is a lot of good will there. We have been hiring quite a number away from their previous owners. Sometimes, some trickery is involved, where an abused elf will request their owners clothing so that they can clean them properly (such as after a wild party), and their 'master' unthinkingly frees them (we had one elf show up still holding his ex-masters' official Ministry robes, leaving the fool sitting naked in his office).

Consequently, we have an interesting collection of wizarding clothing here. Seeing some of the stuff that the elves show up with, you really have to wonder about the tastes (both sartorial and sexual) of some of the magical society. I don't know what kind of party Draco Malfoy attended before he drunkenly released his body-servant, but we now have a lacy suspender-belt in Gryffindor colours. (Luna suggested that Hermione might want to claim it for herself, but the look on her face had us laughing for days).

I suspect that within the year, we should be able to drop the subtlety. At that point, we think we can have enough elves freed that the high-class twits will be starving (I doubt most of them can even find their kitchens, much less recognise unprepared food), and the Ministry and most of the upper crust will be bankrupt. I personally look forward to foreclosing on the Malfoys and the Parkinsons!

Let the Mutiny begin in earnest. I now have a family to protect, and Captain Bligh is coming back with a vengeance!

Love and hugs to all

Harry


	2. Letters to the Escapees

Captain Bligh and the Mutineers: Letters _**to**_ the Escapees

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, the Easter Bunny, the Brooklyn Bridge, or property on Long Island. This writing is for my own amusement, and hopefully that of others. Additional characters are my own inventions, needed to flesh out my imagining of 'what happens next'. No money made, no free flights to Tahiti, nothing.

**Timeframe:** Post DH, ignoring the epilogue

**Rating:** M

**Author's Notes**: I have assumed that the spells used for the Marauders' Map have become known, at least to the 'good guys'. Communications hidden in this fashion are shown in italics. Communications to and from the goblins of Gringott's have their own bankers' security spells, and do not require this kind of subterfuge.

**Synopsis:** After bashing their heads against the intransigence of wizarding society, escape seemed the only solution. History might not repeat itself, but sometimes there are similarities.

**September 20, 2005**

Dear Harry,

I received your letter today.

I am very sorry, but neither Fleur or I can grant the favour you ask.

I know that the debts my family owes you can never be repaid, but your request is impossible as it stands.

With our best wishes,

William Weasley

**September 21, 2005**

Dear Harry,

What the hell was in your letter to Bill and Fleur?

They were at our place for dinner when they got your owl. Bill opened your letter and his face went entirely white! He showed it to Fleur, who ran from the room and became violently ill.

I asked him what was wrong, and he shook his head, saying he had to leave immediately. He crumpled the parchment up and threw it into our fireplace, yelling 'Incendio Maximus!". Fleur came back into the room, and took his hand, and the two apparated away.

What's going on, mate?

Your confused friend,

Ron

**September 23, 2005**

Esteemed Senior Account Holder Harry Potter (Lord Potter, Lord Black, and numerous titles gained and merited through battle and personal combat against the most recent Dark Lord),

Dear Harry,

My opposite number in the Department of Benedictions and Maledictions has informed me that you have recently requested a personal favour from two of our employees in his department, namely William Weasley and Fleur Delacour Weasley.

Your nature of request falls under aspects of their work at Gringott's Bank. As such, these services are restricted to bank functions, and any freelance provision of such would violate their terms of employment as well as their oaths of confidentiality. Gringott's frowns on such practices and violation of their contracts would require the immediate extermination of the persons and their immediate families.

In addition, given the current political climate in the British wizarding society, any public indication that Gringott's might be providing free services of its staff to one or other faction within the Wizengamot would have serious repercussions. Any public awareness of such rumours would also result in stiff and painful penalties to the persons involved.

I gather that the implications of your request caused some distress to these two valued staff members. I also understand that they have very properly refused to provide these services, in the form of personal favours.

Given these facts, I understand from our own meetings with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley that your request has to do in part with the protection and recovery of resources which you inherited from your parents and your godfather. As such, these actions would fall under the proper functions of my own services as manager of your accounts and property. The inter-departmental loan of these valued employees may be engaged for appropriate fees.

As you know, among our society, promotion is often through personal combat, so the use of staff by other departments must be conducted with discretion and negotiation, if only in order to prevent unnecessary and counterproductive bloodshed.

As the holder of two of our most senior accounts, I can offer the services of the two employees in question for a rate of 15% of the standard rates which would be charged for their services, were they hired by non-affiliated parties. This would come to a rate of 10 galleons per day for Mr. Weasley's services as a curse-breaker, and 9 galleons per day for Mrs. Weasley's services as spell-caster and analyst. The difference in rates is not intended to reflect on the relative merits or skills of the two persons, nor denigrate the skills of Fleur Delacour Weasley, which are excellent. It is strictly a matter of seniority, as Mr. Weasley has been in the employ of the bank for five years longer than his wife.

I might point out that, under the term of my supervision of your holdings, the combined cost for the services of these two would constitute one-one-hundredth part of one percent of the daily interest on your accounts.

If you agree to these terms, I will immediately open negotiations with Collector–of-the-who-whos-of-her-foes, the Head of their department, for their services (as there is no precise equivalent in human anatomy, this translation of her name is inexact). If you can indicate to me the approximate length of time for which the services are needed, so that their other tasks can be efficiently rescheduled and their own department will not be inconvenienced (as this might have its own serious repercussions), it would be appreciated.

One another point, as you directed, I have arranged for additional protective surveillance for Teddy Lupin and his mother.

May your hands ever flow with gold,

Nutgrabber

Senior Account Manager

**September 29, 2005**

Dear Harry,

Thank you for arranging things through proper channels. And thank you for understanding why we had to refuse your original requests. The Goblins are extremely unforgiving to anyone wanting to moonlight, and if your note had fallen into the wrong hands the safety of our beloved children would have been in jeopardy (and ourselves, for that matter – as a curse-breaker, death has always been a possibility and a risk I accept, but I will not risk our children).

We look forward to working with you to recover the properties that were put under the _Fidelius_ charms by persons known and unknown. This will be an interesting and challenging task, as many such properties have effectively disappeared from the world on the death of their secret-keepers. Nutgrabber has given us a list of your holdings with this problem, and it looks rather extensive.

I also understand that you were curious about the possibility of casting new Fidelius spells on properties after the removal of the existing charm, and also the potential for placing similar charms on additional properties. One aspect which you will need to consider in this endeavour is that you would require the consent of the property owner in order to cast a new Fidelius charm; otherwise, wizards would be casting them on their enemies' houses right and left. You wouldn't want your adversaries locating your houses with malicious intent, would you?

_You might consider that when the original secret keeper of a Fidelius dies, all who know the secret become secret keepers themselves. Therefore, although you Hermione and Ron were not actually part of the Order of the Phoenix, you all were admitted to 'Headquarters' and since the death of Alastor Moody, are yourselves secret keepers for this location and would not need our services to locate it. However, to remove and reapply the spells will require expert assistance._

_If the Fidelius is not removed before the last of the secret-keepers dies, the location is lost forever. Several sites which are considered fables by muggles (and many magical folk as well) have been lost in this way. These include, of course, Atlantis, the Breton city of Ys, the 'lost' Lemon Gold Mine and King Solomon's Mines in Africa. Part of my job entails trying to locate some of these sites, by searching for otherwise unexplained magical signatures and/or curses, and by finding locations where people who approach or think about them suddenly forget what they are trying to find – sort of a process of elimination. So we need to get moving on some of these sites and we may have already lost our window of opportunity._

_Another way you may think about to eliminate a Fidelius spell is to render it irrelevant. For example, the secret for 'Headquarters' specifically includes a reference to the Order. I do know there were other safe houses operated by the Order. If the Order ceased to exist, depending on the wording of the secrets, the protection on these properties might also cease. As a junior member of the Order, I was not let into the secrets of such houses, and so do not know where they were located. We intend to consult a senior member of the Order for further information, and this is part of our planned research program, but you might want to take this on and at the same time renew some old acquaintances_.

If you can please indicate a place and time where we can meet to discuss moving forward, we will proceed.

Regards,

Bill and Fleur

**October 1, 2005**

Dear Harry,

Bill and Fleur came over for dinner tonight and explained what had happened when they received your note.

I thought you knew how the goblins worked better than that (I certainly hadn't realized the implications of just asking a favour from my brother). I guess not. Mate, if you didn't know, after your extensive dealings with them, I pity the poor wizards who try it and don't have an 'in' with the creatures!

In telling us all about it, Bill mentioned that they work for what is officially called the Benedictions and Maledictions Department (also known as the Blessings and Curses). Among the human employees, it's called the BM department (because the basic job of the Curses Division is to shit all over their enemies). He had to explain the joke to Fleur when she first started – contrary to the thick accent she affects when strangers are around, her English is excellent - she says that when she speaks "wit' a t'ick French haccent", people (particularly us Brits) tend to underestimate her, which can be useful.

Bill asked if I could do some reconnaissance, as I travel all over the country with the team. Not a problem, and glad to do it. Any particular areas you would like me to check out?

I understand that some of the places you are looking for have effectively disappeared, as their secret-keepers have died. Fleur has come up with some ways of looking for places that aren't there, but can you check with your very clever wives and see if they have any ideas? I suspect that Luna will have some viewpoints that none of the rest of us would ever think of.

Best regards to you and yours, love and hugs from Lavender and the kids

Ron

**October 15, 2005**

Dear Mr. Potter,

I find it difficult after many years of a more formal relationship to address you simply as Harry, as you have requested. I am honoured by your offer, and strongly regret my falling out with your wife, the former Hermione Granger, now Lady Potter.

I have written to Hermione several times, but my owls have returned quite frustrated (and often very tired from long journeys) with the parchments unopened. I ask that I may explain my situation to you and you may share this with her, at your discretion, if this does not intrude on your own domestic loyalties too much. I am sure that she told you her understanding of what happened, and I ask that I may be allowed the courtesy to do the same.

I come from a family which was as firmly committed to Christian morality as Hermione, although my background was a strict and puritanical Scottish Presbyterian family, rather than Church of England. I married young and, I thought, for life.

When I sought my Mastery in Charms, I too rejected the requirements of the advanced weather charms program, and so did not complete my Mastery in that discipline. I completed my Mastery in Transfiguration and was accepted as a teacher at Hogwarts when the late Albus Dumbledore was promoted to Headmaster, and replaced him as Professor of Transfiguration. This was before the first war with Lord Voldemort.

During the first war, one of the most senior of his Death Eaters was a weather master named Aloysius MacEwan. He conjured massive storms, and the Death Eaters would attack under the cover of these storms. My Sean was killed during one such attack by being personally targeted by MacEwan with a bolt of lightning. During that same battle, several senior Hogwarts students and recent graduates were killed as well. I became convinced that, had they been taught the most potent weather magics and counter-jinxes, they could have survived and we could have won the battle.

I became certain that my refusal to move past my early family teaching and be a better and more comprehensive teacher, is what killed my students. I swore that, whatever the personal cost to myself, I would learn and teach everything of a non-dark variety, which would help my students have the tools they need to survive. I am afraid I became quite obsessed about this.

It is said that with great power comes great responsibility. In my youth I saw many survivors of the so-called First World War, many of whom wished they had died 'cleanly' rather than live with crippling injuries, both physical and mental. We ask a soldier to give his life, or to have his body horribly mangled. If we can ask that, or require them to kill (in my opinion, in contravention to the commandments), why can we not ask others such as myself to put aside their childhood beliefs when it is necessary?

Like yourself, as we discussed when we met just after the Battle of Hogwarts, I have felt I could and should have done more to prepare and protect the students, and that if I had done more and taught more, it might have been the difference between life and death for so many that we lost.

What most of our students do not know is that Filius Flitwick and I have been married for the last eighteen years, so our demonstrations of the more intimate aspects of advanced charms do not go outside the bonds of our marriage. I had not told the students this fact and I recognise that my comments that under duress and in extremis witches and wizards might be called upon to engage with the others immediately around them, regardless of their personal relationships, or even whether they liked each other, could be taken as immoral.

I gather that you and your wives found yourselves in a similar extreme condition, which led to your current marital status. Although not usually recognized as legal in Great Britain, your situation is not entirely uncommon in other societies (at least from the point of view of having two legal spouses). However, it was not uncommon during the Hundred Years War in central Europe, when there was a dearth of young men of marriageable age.

Unfortunately, I did not explain that this would only be expected in extreme conditions. Also unfortunately, by this time Hermione had quit listening to the details and conditions when this might be necessary, as I had not explained my own situation and experience – at the time I thought detailing my personal history would be an unnecessary intrusion. Having fought in two wars against Voldemort, personal secrecy had become a necessary habit, and I feel I have failed my students (and one specific and fondly remembered witch) yet again.

I am heartsick over this breakdown in communications and trust. I understand that you had your own serious issues with Professor Dumbledore due to his own keeping important information from you, and find myself following his path to my regret. He had fought two Dark Lords, and we both fell into the habits of secrecy.

Enough of that. Can you imagine, an elderly dour Scottish lady whining about her own hurt feelings? That's just not done!

I trust you are not seeking to discover the locations of houses of those who you suspect of being up to no good.

_You asked about the nature and founding of the Order of the Phoenix. I assume from this that you are trying to find some of the properties you inherited, which were put under the Fidelius charm._

_Although you were not a member, your life and survival was one of the two foci of the Order, the other being the resistance to, and the defeat of, Tom Riddle the self-styled Lord Voldemort. As the Order was started up before you were born, our fight against the Dark Lord was the original and the essential function._

_When Albus Dumbledore first proposed the Order, he recruited myself and Filius, your parents and their friends, Mr. Longbottom's parents, Mr. Weasley's two uncles (on his mother's side) but not his parents, your old friend Hagrid, and several others. In all there were twenty-seven of us, but of course were fewer at first until we recruited more. We set up safe houses for people who needed to hide, with Albus and Filius casting the spells. Unfortunately, they did not manage to get to the Longbottoms' house in time to prevent tragedy._

_I was the secret-keeper for only two of the houses, which were contributed by my own family._

_Although sympathetic to the Order, Molly and Arthur Weasley did not join at first as they had a very young family which took up most of their time, as well as Molly being rather worried about their safety._

_Several of the rest of the houses were donated, or rather, loaned by your paternal grandfather, at your father's request. Until your godfather escaped from Azkaban, the Order had no material support from the Black family, as they were supporters of Voldemort. _

_I understand that your godfather's mother, Walpurga Black, actually donated a house or two to Voldemort, but no Fidelius was placed on it (I suspect if the old hag had been in better physical condition herself, she would have joined and been one of his inner circle – she could have written his manifesto for him). Whether this was done because none of the Death Eaters could perform the incantations, or where the Dark Lord was the only one who could cast it and did not trust anyone enough to allow any of his followers to keep secrets from him, I do not know. The spell-caster cannot be the secret-keeper, although this fact is not well-known even to those aware of the spell._

_One perhaps amusing thought is how difficult it would have been for Lucius Malfoy and others to claim they were under the Imperious (even neglecting the assistance of their bribery) if their own homes were under a Fidelius that only Death Eaters were privy to. I guess the Dark Lord, in his arrogance, was really not concerned with the well-being of his followers should he fall, or else he just could not conceive of it ever happening._

_Your question of the possibility that the Fidelius charms would fall if the Order was disbanded intrigues me, as I know little of the finer details of this extremely complex spell (I shall have to chat with Filius about it). I do know that I was aware of your parents' house in Godric's Hollow until about your first birthday, having been present at their wedding reception there and the party for your own birth. Suddenly about the start of September of that year, I could not for the life of me recall where it was, and I suspect that was when the late Headmaster cast the Fidelius spell. I suspect the wording of the spell had to do with the location of the Potter family, or your parents by name, because as soon as they were killed, I and others again knew where their house was – this is how Hagrid was able to locate you._

_I know that the wording of what became called 'Headquarters' for the Order did mention the Order by name. If the Fidelius has not fallen, then this assumption about the name is likely valid._

_Other than the houses my family donated to the cause (and which they would like back, I may add, being the frugal Scots they are), I do not know the precise wording of the spells used. For those houses as well, the Order was specifically mentioned._

_I shall contact the surviving original members of the Order, and we will see if we can recall (either with or without pensieve help) the exact wording of the founding of the Order. It may be as simple as all agreeing that we are done with our original purpose, and call it quits. I will let you know._

A bit of news to share with you and yours. While I was writing this letter, Fred Weasley came to my office, looking for a job, and yes, I know he died in the so-called Battle of Hogwarts. He asked about employment prospects as a poltergeist. He said that being a ghost was getting boring, but a post as a poltergeist would have an interesting range of duties for an inveterate prankster. He asked if I would be willing to write a reference letter for him, if we didn't have space at Hogwarts.

Please give my regards to Hermione and Luna, and if she accepts my apologies, I would very much like to see Hermione again.

With my profound respect,

Minerva McGonagall

**October 30, 2005**

Dear Harry,

Yesterday was fun. Rattled some cages, twisted some noses, and gained some information I know 'they' wish we hadn't.

Sometimes my reputation as a timid little boy can be useful, like during yesterday's meeting of the Wizengamot. Previously I just sat and listened and watched the ebb and flow of political bullshit that passes for debate and discussion. They learned to pretty much ignore me.

So yesterday, I arranged for a number of the old DA gang to be present in the visitors' gallery, ready to take notes. Then I got up to speak, and droned on about the majesty of the Wizengamot and how I was proud to take my place as a member of the august body. I announced myself as Viscount Longbottom, regent and heir to the title of Lord Longbottom of Longbottom. A number of the more elderly members decided that this would be an appropriate juncture to take a potty break, nip of for a drink or a nap or whatever. Once a sufficient number of the obstructionists had left, I let them have it.

I mentioned that I was regent of our House only due to the actions of a Death Eater who at least had the loyalty to go to prison and then fight and die along with her master, unlike those despicable cowards who fought on their side or provided material support, but then loudly pleaded their innocence (helped along by substantial bribes to corrupt officials).

I demanded that, as this was the meeting closest to the date when Harry Potter first put pause to Lord Voldemort (you should have seen them cringe at that name, even now), it was most appropriate to recognise that Lord Potter had finally and decisively killed the same Voldemort (more cringing) and that we (playing the 'I'm one of you' card) should retract the outstanding warrants and demands for restitution, as being an example of petty vindictiveness as well as being illegal. I demanded immediate passage of my motion to this effect. Lord Weasley of Ottery St Catchpole (Arthur) seconded my motion and Aberforth Dumbledore (as the Head of House Dumbledore) moved for immediate passage.

You would have thought we had given old Parkinson a ceramic enema! He looked around frantically to the seats of the old fogeys who had originally passed the nonsensical laws, and they were all out of the room. (This is where the gang came in – they were able to ascertain exactly whose seats he was looking at. When we reviewed their memories later, we got the names of _all_ the powers behind his throne, or at least the most important ones. There were a few people we hadn't thought were among them, but they apparently had covered their tracks very well, until he gave them away. They were the ones he looked towards first, and I got the impression that some of them are not at all pleased.)

Parkinson, as Chief Warlock, called for a brief recess for the chamber to consider the motion, and sent messengers scrambling to drag back the ones needed to defeat my motion. When they had duly assembled (some still with crumbs on their faces from their interrupted snacks) he started to berate me for the audacity to insult the esteemed members who had brought the laws into being originally, and that I was just a boy who didn't know his place.

That's when I let him have it, personally!

I pointed out that I had stood by your side at the Battle of the Ministry when we and four students battled a dozen Death Eaters and Voldemort himself, and that I had fought in the Battle of Hogwarts and had personally killed Voldie's familiar, the snake Nagini which contained a Horcrux. I then explained (as most were puzzled by the uncommon term) that it was an abomination containing a seventh portion of Voldemort's soul, which had been ripped apart through acts of murder. I pointed out that I was the holder of the Order of Merlin 2nd class (flashed my M2 medal for them to see), and that his comments were an insult to me and according to the charter of the Order, an insult to every member of the Order, requiring a duel to the death between the insulter and each and every member of the Order. I pointed out that this meant you as well, the one person who had faced Voldemort over and over and survived and finally dispatched the evil bastard yourself! I then asked how he thought he would fare against you.

I then demanded Parkinson name his second then and there, and that I would inform the rest of the Order by owl to expect his choice of location, or else retract his statements and pay the recompense required under the Order's charter (roughly half his net worth, from our calculations).

I guess Pansy's not going to get the inheritance she expected now.

Damn, that was fun.

Anyway, the laws were rescinded, in such a way that they cannot be reinstated without invoking the insult to the Order again, and I gather 'they' really don't want that to happen. On top of that, we got the list of the real powers of the sticks-in-the-mud faction, and as you requested, I have passed a copy on to our mutual financial advisor (thanks for putting me onto him – the House of Longbottom hasn't been this flush in generations).

Regards and hugs to Luna and Hermione, and we'll see you at Christmas, wherever,

Neville (VL)

**November 5, 2005**

Esteemed Senior Account Holder Harry Potter (Lord Potter, Lord Black, blah, blah, blah et cetera, et cetera),

Dear Harry,

I know you prefer to neglect the use of your titles, but bank protocol dictates that senior account holders be treated with the respect they deserve. Hence the titles. However, in that light, I will hereafter respect your wishes to be just 'Harry'.

You have lately enquired about the status of properties donated by the late Lady Walpurga Black to the late and very much unlamented Tom Riddle, the self-proclaimed Lord Voldemort. As you mentioned, these properties were never put under a Fidelius charm, for whatever reason.

I have found that title was never legally transferred to Mr. Riddle. Apparently, Lady Black figured that a witch's word and intent overrode any goblin-mediated legalities, and so the legal status was just exactly as **she** decided it was. The upshot of this bigoted misunderstanding is that the properties are yours, as your godfather's heir to the House of Black. I have engaged, for the appropriate fees of course, a team of cursebreakers under the supervision of Mr. Weasley to 'clean' out any 'residue' of Riddle's occupancy, and sufficient house elves to restore the buildings and properties to an acceptable state.

I have been advised by my opposite number in our security department, that young Lord Longbottom (de facto if not yet de jur), your godson, and a number of your other acquaintances (some of whom attended the latest meeting of the Wizengamot) have been under surveillance by some rather questionable persons. So he decided to question them.

It appears that your foes decided that, what they could not get legally in the light of day, they would achieve in the dark of night. These persons were advised of the error of their ways, under veritaserum (did you know that, with the Wizengamot's legal limit of three drops, they might tell you their names, but with ten as was administered while they were in our care, they will tell you the size and nature of their grandmother's tattoo, her underwear size and colour, and anything else they might happen to remember). In keeping with your wishes as we discussed previously, we did not leave them with a souvenir of their sojourn in our basements (it is amazing how a missing digit or limb focusses the mind), but they were left in various corners of the world without their wands or their clothes, typically in locations where the ambient language was not one they knew.

Thank you and Lord Longbottom for the list of 'the bad guys', for lack of a better term. Most of the aforementioned miscreants were indeed in the employ of those at the top of the list, and who are now under our own surveillance which are more likely to remain hidden than **their** rather incompetent hirelings.

I have arranged for added security for your friends, as well as your godson.

I also find it interesting that during your humans' so-called Dark Age (in Europe) another despised people were only allowed the trades of bankers and jewellers. We goblins believe that finance is just warfare in a less bloody package, and pursue it with the same intensity. After one of the so-called 'goblin rebellions' that we supposedly 'lost', in the peace treaty we were forbidden to use wands. We never used wands, ever, so this is not that great a 'punishment'!

Can you imagine any other 'war' where the losers were put in charge of the victors' economy? Well, if that is the delusion that the wizarding society needs to keep telling itself so they can sleep at night, they can certainly do so, as long as their sleep is not disturbed by our laughter.

One other point in which you might be interested. After the last so-called goblin rebellion, our people built a building, using proprietary technology such as floo systems and size-modifying elevators. Most of this building was located underground, requiring extensive tunneling. You are aware of the goblin position on ownership of things our people have built. In this case, the building housing the Ministry of Magic remains the property of Gringott's of London, and is leased to the Ministry, with a perpetual maintenance contract, for a period of nine hundred years (starting in 1867 by your calendar).

I could see if our property division would be amenable to some specific spells within a certain property, which would make life a bit more interesting to those who have held that my people are inferior and sub-human for so long.

I think they would enjoy the possibilities. After all, it was Jowlchewer in their construction department that came up with the entry-way system – as far as I know, no-one who works at the Ministry has noticed the significance and symbolism of requiring all witches and wizards entering the Ministry to flush themselves down a public toilet. He got a hefty bonus for that addition to the building's ward systems, and was made goblin-of-the-month for our London Branch.

Interesting, no?

With Respect

Nutgrabber

Senior Accounts Manager

**November 20, 2005**

Dear Harry, Luna and Hermione,

It was good to hear from you all again, and Minnie and I would be delighted to accept your invitation to spend Christmas and New Year's in the tropics. I will be fun to get out of this drafty castle and see Minnie get a tan you don't achieve on the coast of Scotland

I would very much like to see Luna again as during her school days, I must say that she was one of the most interesting students I ever had under my wing as the Head of Ravenclaw House.

I would also be glad to take Hermione on as an apprentice towards her Mastery in Charms. I know that some of the old stick-in-the-mud purebloods will object to allowing a muggle-born to gain a Mastery, but screw them. I don't think Adam and Eve (if you believe in that story) were a witch and wizard, so if you look back far enough we were all muggle-born. Their attitudes got a lot of my friends killed, so they can burn in hell with old Voldie and his minions!

I am also glad that Hermione and Minnie have started patching up their differences. My wife takes her responsibility as a teacher very much to heart, and to be misunderstood in that commitment hurt her deeply. She acknowledges that she should, perhaps, have explained her own coming to terms with some of the differences between the wizarding world's expectations and the outside (muggle) world.

We look forward to spending some time with you three, and give Minnie and your wives time to have some long talks.

_I must add that Hermione was mistaken on a number of points concerning the Fidelius spell on the house on Grimmauld Place. Albus Dumbledore was never the secret-keeper for this location, and the Fidelius is still in effect there. I believe that Bill Weasley already alluded to this fact._

_If you recall about ten years back, you were brought to the house by Alastor Moody, who showed you the slip of paper with the secret. Only the secret-keeper had that authority! When Mad-eye died, all those of us who were in on the secret became secret keepers for the place, but as Albus had died previous to your escape from Little Whinging, he was never one of them._

_When you two and Mr. Weasley escaped from your second unauthorized excursion into the Ministry, Yaxley was holding on to Hermione's arm when she apparated you into the house. She feared that this meant that the secret was revealed to him, and so you would have to abandon use of the place. _

_However, unlike warning wards, the Fidelius covers the entire location (think of a half apple, rather than a balloon). Yaxley was indeed taken inside the perimeter, but he had no idea where he was and could not bring anyone else there, as she had not revealed the secret to him – once he was outside again (almost instantly as I understand), he would not be able to re-enter (by the way, you may not have heard but he received the Kiss four years ago, once the trials finished)._

_Hermione need not hold onto any residual guilt for revealing the secret, because she __did__not__ do so._

_Anyway, the three of you are each powerful enough to cast the Fidelius, should you wish me to teach it to you. If not, I would be more than happy to do the casting for you at any or all of your properties (at my usual consulting fee rates, of course – after all, I am part goblin)._

_You enquired as to how fast the spell could be cast, in particular for the Grimmauld house once the previous spell is removed. The procedure takes about ten minutes, but most of it can be done before removing the previous wards and charms, and the final invocation to 'seal the deal' would take about ten seconds. This still is enough time for an attack to occur, so security would be required._

Regards

Filius Flitwick (Fil)

In canoncansodoff's story 'Muggle Summer, Wizard's Fall', the concept of making a Fidelius charm irrelevant is discussed. I agree with the logic, and have used his (or her?) principle.


	3. Headlines and Articles

Captain Bligh and the Mutineers: Headlines and Articles

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, the Easter Bunny, the Brooklyn Bridge, or beachfront property in Arizona. This writing is for my own amusement, and hopefully that of others. Additional characters are my own inventions, need to flesh out my imagining of 'what happens next'. No money made, no free flights to Tahiti, nothing.

**Timeframe:** Post DH, ignoring the epilogue

**Rating:** M Warning, at least one bad pun.

**Warning: Consensual Multiple Marriage (maybe)**

**Synopsis:** After bashing their heads against the intransigence of wizarding society, escape seemed the only solution. History might not repeat itself, but sometimes there are similarities.

**December 31, 2005**

The Daily Prophet

_All the news that fits on the page_

The Ministry Beat, by Fergus Flooble

Today, Gringott's Bank of London announced a new policy. As of tomorrow (New Year's Day), Gringott's will be calling in all loans for payment where no attempt has been made to either pay off or re-finance the loans within the last five years.

This reporter contacted the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Lord Commodus Parkinson, for comment. "He responded, quote, "If those sub-human beasts think they can take what is rightfully ours, they have another thought coming. We defeated them many times and can do so again! It'll be a cold day in hell before they can make wizards bend to their will."

It must be noted that Lord Parkinson was the leader of the faction in the Wizengamot who attempted, unsuccessfully, to seize the property and inheritances of Harry Potter, The-Man-Who-Defeated-the-Dark-Lord. Apparently, he believes in the old adage, "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is ours".

When asked to respond, Neckchewer, the goblin who was acting for the press affairs divisions of Gringott's, told me that he had sent a note to Lord Parkinson and used the goblin saying which translates (roughly) as "Depart and auto-procreate".

Whether this is the opening shot of another Goblin Rebellion, or just political posturing remains to be seen.

**January 5, 2006**

The Daily Prophet

_All the news that fits on the page_

The Ministry Beat, by Fergus Flooble

Gringott's announced today that they have received responses from some of their borrowers that were not acceptable, as they indicated that the borrowers had no intention of repaying outstanding loans in the foreseeable future. Further, the borrowers had used terms which were racist, species-ist, sexist and several other '-ists', some of which they had not encountered before.

They indicated that they would be treating some of the outstanding commitments as bad loans, and were considering foreclosing on properties which were securing some of the debts, and either selling the remaining loans (unsecured by real estate) to collections agencies or other parties willing to take on the debts.

This reporter was not familiar with the term 'collections agencies', and asked about the nature of such organisations. Neckchewer, of the press affairs division of Gringott's, told me that collections agencies were companies who would buy the loan commitment from the loan holder, usually at some discount, and then proceed to collect the debt by means which the original loaning-granting party would deem unsuitable as a standard business practice. As goblins are a warlike people who have been known to resort to bloodshed in their business dealings, the mind boggles at the possibilities of what they would consider unacceptable for themselves. Neckchewer smiled (this reporter hopes you never see a goblin smile), and said "The one I am thinking of often hires trolls to collect debts. They sometimes bring back the body as well as the money, if they haven't already eaten it."

The Social Beat, by Gilda Skeeter

In other news, early on the morning of New Year 's Day, it was reported that a large group of aurors congregated in the park at Grimmauld Place in London. The press release from the aurors' London office indicated that there had been a large New Year's party which had the serious potential of violating the International Statute of Secrecy, as the party involved some charmed fireworks, was quite loud and boisterous, and could clearly be heard by muggles living in the area. Upon investigation, no memory modifications were required, as parties, at New Year's and on other occasions, have apparently often been held in this park, and the neighbours seemed under the impression that this was just the usual celebrating. However, from the collection of several empty bottles of Ogden's Substandard Firewhiskey (their third level of product, favoured by those on limited means who cannot afford 'Finest' or 'Standard') as well as some muggle brands, and the fact that it was aurors and not the muggle police who investigated the party, it was obvious that some witches and wizards were in attendance and potentially exposing the magical world to the muggles. There may also be some serious concerns about possible underage magic use during this party, given the presence of some senior Hogwarts staff members with the aurors, but this was not noted in the press release.

On another topic, Michaela Bott, a great granddaughter of the original Bertie Bott (the founder of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean Company), and the current president of the company, announced today that the company's entire stock of a number of flavours have gone missing. The missing confection flavours were toasted coconut, magnesium citrate, lime daiquiri, Dutch licorice, mango, cabbage, pineapple, castor oil, guava, broccoli and black raspberry. A note was left near the storage bins for the coconut flavoured beans, with sufficient money (200 Galleons) to cover the replacement of the missing stock, and according to the note, an extra 100 for the 'inconvenience'. The note was unsigned, and the warehouse was secured with powerful anti-apparition and anti-intrusion wards. Aurors are investigation this odd theft of an inexplicable combination of candies, and the company should have all of the stolen flavours back in stock by Valentine's Day.

-30-

**January 15, 2006**

The Daily Prophet

_All the news that fits on the page_

The Ministry Beat, by Fergus Flooble

It has been reported that the Minster of Magic, the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, and several senior members of the assembly have taken to residing in their offices, rather than returning to their residences each night. It would appear that some major programs or actions are in preparation which requires these esteemed wizards and witches to burn the midnight oil at the Ministry.

The Social Beat, by Gilda Skeeter

A curious development has been that Lord Homer Bulstrode, a senior member of the conservative faction in the Wizengamot, has publically announced that he would be willing to negotiate a marriage contract for his only daughter Millicent to Lord Harry Potter, patriarch of the Potter and Black families and the slayer of the late Lord Voldemort. The gentleman named in this announcement was a classmate of the lady in question. When the young Slytherin witch was asked to comment, she burst into tears and cried 'Why is Daddy doing this to me?" Lord Bulstrode pleaded with Lord Potter to accept his daughter, as she was the only thing of value he had left, and he would very much like to mend fences with the Potter family.

As he had been noted in the past for his opulent lifestyle and has been a noted member of the conservative faction who proposed the law declaring Potter and outlaw and demanded seizure of Lord Potter's properties, Lord Bulstrode's current statements strike this reporter as very strange.

In more mundane news, the Glycolford Ceramics plant in Ireland has reported that vandals that broken into their pottery works in southern Ireland, and destroyed their entire stock of self-cleaning chamber pots, as well as the molds used to cast these items. Spells have been cast on the factory, preventing the repair of the molds, and curse—breakers have had to be retained to lift the enchantments. However, due to a reported excess of current work on the books, the curse removal will not be possible for the next two months. As we are past the worst of the dwarvish-cholera season, this delay in resuming production should pose no major health risks.

- 30 -

**January 18, 2006**

The Daily Prophet

_All the news that fits on the page_

The Social Beat, by Gilda Skeeter

Following the unexpected announcement of three days ago by Lord Homer Bulstrode, a principal ally, it was announced that Warlock Lord Parkinson has also publically stated that he was willing, indeed eager, to negotiate a marriage contract for either of his unmarried daughters to either Lord Harry Potter, patriarch of the Potter and Black families and the slayer of the late Lord Voldemort, or with Lord Neville Longbottom. Both of the gentlemen named in this announcement were classmates of one of the ladies in question, Pansy Parkinson (second daughter of the Chief Warlock) and two years ahead of Nasturtium (Nasti)) Parkinson.

Lord Parkinson announced that he would require that Lord Potter divorce his muggle-born wife, the former Hermione Granger, to marry either of his daughters, as it would be completely intolerable to have a pure-blood witch be in a subordinate position as a concubine under the authority of a muggle-born (although this is not the term he used to describe her) as the Lady of the House. He also stated that this alliance with the House of Parkinson would allow Potter access to the real power in the wizarding world, which he was convinced that Lord Potter was desperately trying to achieve.

It has long been known that Pansy Parkinson had been contracted, since birth, to be wed to Draco Malfoy, heir to the house of Malfoy, but this contract was cancelled by Lord Parkinson when Lord Lucius Malfoy was convicted of being a principal Death Eater after the second fall of He-who-could-not-be-named-for-many-years. This was thought strange as Lord Parkinson himself wore the Dark Mark tattoo since the first fall of the Dark Lord, but was acquitted due to being under the Imperius curse (as was Lord Malfoy, his supposed comrade in arms at the time). It has long been suspected that the cancellation of the betrothal contract had more to do with the Ministry of Magic's confiscation of the Malfoy fortune than any disagreement with the Dark Lord's (or Malfoy's) pure-blood agenda.

When the young witches, who were housemates in Slytherin House when at school at Hogwarts, were asked to comment, the elder Miss Parkinson stated that Hell would freeze over before she would have anything to do with either young wizard lord.

She then paused, and added quietly, "My father hasn't been home for over two weeks now – I really don't know what's going on with him. One thing I know about Potter is that he really doesn't seem interested in Power – after all, when he killed the Dark Lord, he could have just taken over with a wave of his hand. If my father thinks that is what Potter is after, he's either power-hungry himself, senile, or just delusional. Anyway, if this is how young witches are to be treated by the Head of their Ancient House, maybe Potter was right all along. But please don't print that, or my name is going to be mud with all my family."

When asked to comment (through his agents at Gringott's), Lord Potter stated that he was absolutely amazed, in that he had never suspected the possibility that he would ever agree wholeheartedly with anything that Pansy Parkinson ever had to say.

- 30 -

**January 21, 2006**

The Quibbler

_All the news that gives you fits_

Reported by Serdimer Mort

The Benevolent Society of Ectoplasmists, a brethren of ghosts who deal with a range of services for the recently deceased, have reported that Satan, the Prince of Darkness himself, and several of his minions have been spotted shopping at Harrod's in muggle London. When investigated, their shopping had been in the outdoor activities department and appears to have been in search of thermal underwear. The BSE reports that His Darkness was seen leaving the vicinity in a chauffeur-driven snowplow.

In other news, the annual nerf migration is underway between the Faroe Islands and the Channel Islands, so readers are cautioned about sailing in the Irish Sea and the English Channel in boats smaller than 15 metres in length, or with a draught of less than a metre and a half, due to the risk of being capsized. Lady Black, head of the Cryptobiological Institute of Greater Britain, announced that she was recruiting volunteers to conduct a census of the numbers of the nerf herds, and the number of nerflings hatched this year.

Breaking news – Senility Plague attacks the Wizengamot. Outbreaks of massive stupidity have been reported among the older legislators of the Wizarding world. This comes as no surprise to our faithful readers, who are aware of the Wizengamot's steadfast denial of the Heliotrope conspiracy and the nargle infestation of the Ministry building.

- 37 -

(inverted)

Word has it that the Black/Potter conspiracy is moving into action. Those who work at the ministry will be receiving some unspecified documents in the near future.

It has been suggest to us to pass on as a word to the wise – Don't Lose Your Copy.

**January 26, 2006**

The Daily Prophet

_All the news that fits on the page_

The Ministry Beat, by Fergus Flooble

There have been a couple of recent developments at the Ministry that are more curious than anything else.

First, the Ministry is claiming that, due to some budgetary shortfalls, the buffet lunches provided for the Wizengamot during their meetings will have to be reduced in size. To compensate for the decrease in the volume of food and drink, and on the advice of nutritionists from St Mungo's, the buffet will have more salads and so-called 'healthy' choices of food, and the number of cakes, treacle tarts, and high-potency alcoholic beverages will be reduced. New items will include vegetable sandwiches on whole-grain breads, bran muffins, and other tasty offerings. It is hoped that this last development will assist some of the senior members of the assembly who had serious weight-related health issues.

Another development is that the Ministry's human resources department and staff cafeterias are now working together on a program to keep staff informed of weekly specials. When new staff join the Ministry, they are given a map of the building showing important features, such as the locations of their assigned offices, the cafeterias and the washroom and change room facilities. All staff, except most of the senior people such as Wizengamot members who have been around the building longer than this reporter has drawn breath and hence who know the layout of the Ministry probably better than the mapmakers themselves, have been provided with the new maps, which have a listing of the week's specialities which will be available at the cafeterias. The maps have been charmed so that the listing of available food items will automatically update every week, so that staff will know what delights will be offered.

I took a look at the listings shown on the map, and the offerings look delicious. There were some other notes on the map, but I suspect that they were of little significance, because cannot remember what they were about.

The Social Beat, by Gilda Skeeter

Last night, which was of course Robbie Burns Day, most of the junior staff at the Ministry of Magic, and a range of other young witches and wizards, attended a gala booze-up at the home of one of the senior Wizengamot members. The host, who apparently wanted to remain anonymous, did not attend the party, but it was suspected that it was Lord Crassus MacHine himself, as the open bar was serving some of the MacHine's distillery's 150 year old single malt (which normally runs about 400 galleons a bottle for us plebeians). As many of us attending had never had the opportunity to taste this exalted brew, a substantial amount was consumed.

It was known that Robbie Burns was not the most powerful wizard from the lowlands of Scotland, but his romantic poetry and songs have been held responsible for the sharp increase in magical births around Ayrshire during his adult lifetime. Of course, songs were sung at the party, the haggis was addressed, the bagpipes were played, and this morning this reporter could not located her underwear.

More conservative wizards and witches have complained for years that Burn's works constitute compulsion charms forcing inappropriate behaviour among the young. However, the Department of Mysteries has investigated, and have ruled that, although they do seem to increase already existing libidos, they show no inherent compulsive magic – the wizard who made this ruling speculated that the complaints have generally been an attempt by embarrassed people seeking an excuse for their own errant behaviour.

Attendance at this party seemed both exclusive and open to all, as the engraved invitations served as a portkey to the residence, but most of the people I know from the Ministry were there, including most of the reporters from the Daily Prophet (and even some from the Quibbler). Whether it was because of our means of arrival to (and return from) the party, or possibly because of the amount of very nice beverages consumed, I cannot even say exactly where we were – as I said, the host seemed to want to remain anonymous. I though I knew where I was at the time, from the decorations of the mansion, but now when I am writing this, I cannot seem to recall any of the details.

It was also reported that senior members of the Wizengamot received gift baskets to celebrate Robbie Burns Day as well. In this case, it was obvious that the donors had researched the tastes of the members well, as those who enjoy Scotch were gifted with MacHine's Ultra (a 50 year old blended Scotch with the slogan 'MacHine's give you the gears', and generally sold in Diagon Alley for around G89 a bottle), those who prefer gin were supplied with the best Dutch Genever (Oranjestad Special), and those with a more tropical taste got bottles of Black and Black's 1963 Vintage Pirate Potion (overproof) rum. The self-refilling gift baskets also contained baking, vegetables and fruit, and a limited selection of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

A senior staffer who was present when the gift baskets were delivered said that, when Lord MacHine saw what was in some of the baskets, his face went as white as a ghost, though not nearly as transparent. Although the bottles of Scotch bore his family's label, he knew he had not sent them.

Whoever put these events together deserves a lot of thanks, so thank you, whoever you are.

**February 2, 2006**

The Daily Prophet

_All the news that fits on the page_

The Ministry Beat, by Fergus Flooble

Today, the Security Department of the Ministry of Magic instituted a new rule, which prevents all Ministry shredders from operating, or waste-paper baskets from automatically emptying, unless the documents being disposed of have been cleared by Security. The 'scourgify' cleaning spell will no longer work within the Ministry building.

This measure was put in place at the direction of the minister herself, as it has been found that a lot of Ministry stationery was being used for illegal activities. These included illegal betting on the All-Britain Quidditch League, as well as more nefarious ventures. Those running these activities will no longer be able to dispose of the evidence (and will have to use their own parchment for any such pools). The scourgify spell had been used to remove incriminating writing from documents, which is why this household spell was included in the prohibitions.

The Social Beat, by Gilda Skeeter

**Malfoy Leaves Britain, Repudiates Family Traditions**

It was announced today that Draco Malfoy, scion of what was once the Ancient and Noble House of Malfoy, is leaving Britain permanently. Mr. Malfoy was interviewed just before he left by International Floo to his new home in Lyon, France. The Malfoy family has distant relatives in France, whence they came to Britain during the Norman invasion of 1066.

This reporter asked Mr. Malfoy why he was leaving Britain. He scowled at me, and said "My life here has been nothing but lies. My family lied to me, and society lied to me. The whole pure-blood program has been nothing but complete hypocrisy."

I was shocked and told him so. I asked what precipitated this rather overwhelming change in his attitude, as he had been known as a champion of the pure-blood cause during his days at Hogwarts.

He smiled, and said "Ah. Hogwarts. You know, the only ones who ever tried to tell me the truth were a couple of pure-bloods, and a few half-bloods and muggle-borns." He rolled up his left sleeve, displaying the infamous Dark Mark on his forearm. "You see this? My Father had it too. We were both branded for the benefit of Lord Voldemort. Did you know he was a half-blood and a bastard? He wasn't pushing for a leadership of the pure-bloods. He was in it for his own power – he even tried to become immortal by murdering innocent people. His followers were cowards and murderers – they hid themselves behind masks, and attacked helpless people, muggles and magicals alike! And I joined them, because that was what I was taught was the highest virtue."

"I have been thinking hard about this since the Battle of Hogwarts. You know who saved my life when one of my idiot so-called friends set fire to the room, using Fiendfyre, killing himself and another of my friends? Harry Potter, that's who. Someone I was taught to despise, and who I tormented for years, pulled me out of the blazing room. Almost the last straw was when Lord Parkinson cancelled my betrothal contact with Pansy, here." At this point, he gestured to the shorter of the two young witches standing with him.

"He cancelled the contract, not because our blood was tainted by my father's conviction and execution for championing the pure-blood cause, but because the ministry confiscated our fortune. We were broke, and so we couldn't keep up the bribes that were keeping him in luxury. So now we were beneath his dignity to associate with."

"The final straw! He tried to sell – yes I said sell – Pansy to Harry Potter so that he could maintain his grasp on political power and his money! Pansy and I have had some long talks, and we both decided we want nothing to do with any place where he and his kind are in charge. Pure-blood supremacy. Bullshit! It's nothing but greed for money and greed for power. That was Voldemort's program, and it's Commodus Parkinson's program. To hell with both of them."

Smiling, he added, "Besides, I have been offered a nice position at the Societé des Balais de Quidditch, in Lyon, in the equipment development department. This comes with a position as assistant coach of 'Le Troupe de Lyon' quidditch team. I happen to know that the company is owned by PB Enterprises, which is a holding company run by Harry Potter, of all people. Potter offered me a job. Me! Will wonders never cease? I even asked Harry why he offered this to me, of all people, who hated him all through school and tried to kill him many times (on orders from my father, passed on from Voldemort)! Who know what he said? 'Draco, I played against you at school. You were a good seeker, and partly because of your family, you had the best equipment. You know quidditch, and you know good brooms. I need that talent and knowledge. We may never be friends, but ability is ability, and not to be wasted.' How do you argue with that kind of logic? And since the family is broke, I needed the job."

Turning to Miss Parkinson, I asked, "Miss Parkinson…." At which point she stopped me.

She held up her left hand, showing off a ring, and shook her head. "Not Miss Parkinson, ever again. I married Draco, and I am now . My father disowned me for this. Good riddance to him."

I turned to the other young witch, a rather large young woman. She held out her hand to shake mine, and introduced herself. "Millie Bulstrode. At least for now," as she looked towards Draco and Pansy and all smiled. "In the future, who knows. I might get together with a young French someone who resembles an old schoolmate."

I aksed, "So,….Draco?"

She smiled and taking Pansy's hand, shook her head. "No, not Draco. And before you ask, yes, my father has disinherited me too. Anyway. We're outta here!"

And with that, they stepped into the floo and disappeared.

Following up on Mr. Malfoy's comment about PB Enterprises (aka PBE), it has been discovered that this holding company has also been, if not the instigator of the rash of foreclosures and loan calls which have financially crippled several old wizarding families, certainly the beneficiary. Among other recent acquisitions of PRE has been the MacHine's distillery, which had been the primary asset of the MacHine family.

A spokewizard for PB Enterprises told me "Gringott's offered us a lot of prime properties at bargain-basement prices. Great investments, and we couldn't pass them up. Of course, now we have to get the company's wards and protections in place. Our people have been very busy the last while."

When asked about Draco Malfoy's new job, and whether this was one of the new companies, he laughed and pointed out that every generation of the Potter and Black families had been quidditch players, and they invested in a lot of broom companies, Nimbus, Firebolt and so on. They have owned the Societé des Balais for the last couple centuries.

**February 15, 2006**

The Daily Prophet

_All the news that fits on the page_

The Ministry Beat, by Fergus Flooble

In surprising new today, several members of the Guild of Senior Administrative Assistants resigned their jobs working for members of the Wizengamot.

For those readers unfamiliar with the working of our Lords and Masters, members of this legislative chamber are not paid for their work, with the exception of the Chief Warlock and support staff. It is officially considered a privilege of being one of the Ancient and Noble Families to 'serve' on this body. Of course, given their position in wizarding society, several members have become even more wealthy dispensing 'learned advice' (better known to us lower classes as influence peddling and bribery).

Over the years, the senior assistants to Wizengamot members, who actually are paid by the Ministry for their work, have become the real power behind the thrones, as they are the ones who actually prepare legislation. Supposedly under the direction of the member for whom they work, but as often as not, they are the ones who come up with the proposals in the first place. For example, the recently overturned declaration of Harry Potter as a traitor and mutineer was actually prepared for Lord Parkinson by his SEA, Madam Vanashon.

Obviously, to make this relationship work, the Wizengamot member and his or her Senior Executive Assistant must see eye-to-eye politically and socially, and over time the SEA and the member either come to a firm consensus or the SEA transfers to another member of the august chamber.

As guild members work exclusively for Wizengamot members, if they are let go by their respective Wizengamot member or they resign, and then are not taken on by another member, by Ministry rules they lose their access to the Ministry and their security clearances, until such time as another member takes them onto his or her staff. Because of this rule, to resign a position where they are in very close cooperation with a member is highly unusual, as it may mean a permanent loss of their rather lucrative and influential appointments.

To have several Guild members resign 'en mass' is unprecedented in our history.

Rumour has it that the resignations were due to some serious health issues with the Wizengamot members themselves. Word has been leaking out about some strange symptoms, including loss of judgement and breakdown of hygiene. This reporter has made an appointment to meet a number of the guild members for lunch to find out more. These will include Madam Vanation, Madam Comm, and Madam Yugest, and perhaps some others.

Oddly enough, the rumours of health issues and the mass resignations seemed to only affect members of the more conservative (aka pure-blood agenda) members of the Wizengamot, but not all of them. One staunchly conservative member, Lord Punsley, appears to be in perfect health, and his assistant has remained at her posting.

Healers from St Mungo's and Aurors from the DMLE have been called in to check for curses or diseases, but none have been detected.

This reporter met with Master Healer Critchley of St Mungo's long-term care staff, and asked about the reported symptoms. MH Critchley had been involved with rehabilitating prisoners at the death camps and prisoner-of-war camps during the Grindewald war, the muggle's Korean conflict (working with the mind-healers to counteract the effects of some of the mental-attack wizards) and the so-called re-education camps during the latest phase of the Voldemort War – to this last, she glared at me and told me sternly to call them what they were, muggle extermination camps. She said that she had seen camps in Europe fifty years before, and the only difference was that the muggle death camps of that era had been more industrialized.

MH Critchley listened to my descriptions, and commented that the strange illnesses sounded a bit like protein deficiency diseases, and a bit like the low-protein high-sugar diets that were used by a couple of the religious cults in the 70's and 80's.

The Social Beat, by Gilda Skeeter

Word has come through that Harry Potter and his families are going to move back to the UK sometime this summer. This event will be met with happiness in some quarters and loathing in others.

It should be an interesting season.


	4. The Chickens Come Home To Roost

Captain Bligh and the Mutineers: The Chickens Come Home to Roost

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, the Easter Bunny, the Brooklyn Bridge, or beachfront property in Arizona. This writing is for my own amusement, and hopefully that of others. Additional characters are my own inventions, need to flesh out my imagining of 'what happens next'. No money made, no free flights to Tahiti, nothing. Nor do I have any rights to the characters and themes of the TV (telly) show 'WKRP in Cincinnati', whence comes the saying "When they're out to get you, paranoia is just straight thinking".

**Timeframe:** Post DH, ignoring the epilogue

**Rating:** M Warning, at least one bad pun.

**Warning: Consensual Multiple Marriage (maybe)**

**Synopsis:** After bashing their heads against the intransigence of wizarding society, escape seemed the only solution. History might not repeat itself, but sometimes there are similarities.

**February 27, 2006**

Behind Gringott's Bank in Diagon Alley in London, in the more upper-scale end of the Alley, is the restaurant 'Wendelin's Stake House' whereupon hangs a sign 'Provender and Potions for the Discerning Palate'. A smaller sign in the window informed prospective clientele 'No Wand, No Service', effectively indicating to goblins and elves that they were not welcome within the premises.

At this location, a reporter from the Daily Prophet and four middle-aged (let's be kind here) witches, lately in the employ of the Ministry of Magic and in the service of the Wizengamot, gathered for an expensive lunch (on the reporter's expense account) and earnest discussion. It was a cold day, with a brisk wind, and the five were pleased to have a fire roaring at the side of the room, and mugs of mulled mead to hand.

After a few mugs of the heated drink, the senior and apparently most important (at least in her own mind and those of her companions) of the witches made the opening introductions as she and the wizard had encountered each other many times, but the others were not as well known to him.

"Ladies, this is Fergus Flooble of the Daily Prophet. He has come to hear our tales of woe. Fergus, these are Madam Comm, Madam Yugest and Madam Nachure," indicating the three other witches.

The last and youngest of the witches, a short blonde, shook her head at this introduction. "Come off your high thestral, Bertha. We're off duty here, and if I read the signs right, we may be off duty permanently. I'm Fern, you know Bertha of course, and these are Dorothea and Shirley."

"Now, how long have you been with the Prophet, and how long on the Ministry desk? You look kind of young," asked the elder of the other two.

The wizard looked puzzled, and said "I've been at the paper for the last eighteen years, since I graduated from Hogwarts, and I have been on the Ministry desk for the last fifteen years. Why do you ask?"

Shirley nodded to Bertha, and looking around to see if anyone else was listening in, said, "I wanted to know if you were a 'pure' wizard. Then you can understand the need to self-respect and dignity. Something in short supply these days."

Fergus nodded, as if in accordance with this statement. As a political reporter, he had had to deal with people of strongly held beliefs, and knew when silent agreement was a more productive strategy. He asked, "Why, in your view, is my length of service important?"

Bertha answered, "Nowadays, they will hire anybody, but back ten years ago, they got rid of all the half-bloods and the mudbloods that they don't seem to have the guts to keep out. It's just not politically acceptable anymore. A shame, in my opinion."

Fergus smiled, and asked, "So, the years when Minister Fudge was lying to the wizarding population were considered good years?" He had been there when the government and the Prophet were completely corrupt and under the influence of the rich Death Eaters such as Lucious Malfoy. When the Prophet cleaned house, an 'honest' reporter could go back to doing his proper job.

Bertha looked shocked. "Well, he made some mistakes, but he was right that Harry Potter was a trouble-maker. He has been the source of trouble for the last twenty five years!"

Dorothea shook her head and said "Bertha, are you sure you want to say that? Twenty five years ago, Harry Potter was only a baby. What trouble could he have caused, that doesn't make us look very bad when you describe it in that fashion?"

Bertha rubbed her left arm in an embarrassed fashion. "You're right, Dot. I misspoke. But Lord Parkinson was very insistent that Potter is the source of all our current problems."

Shirley shook her head at this. "Bertha, old Parkinson is a greedy fool! The only reason he wasn't wearing the Dark Mark was that He-who-cannot….. Oh hell, He's dead, this time for certain, and he's been dead for almost eight years and Potter killed him. Voldemort needed a bagman."

Bertha shook her head. "Lord Parkinson is the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. If nothing else, he and his office deserves our respect. Lord Parkinson is, or rather, was an honourable wizard who was dedicated to upholding the traditions that I was taught at my mother's knee. Traditions that I feel are being eroded by Potter and his friends. Parkinson saw it, and I see it too."

Shirley looked at her compatriot, and shook her head. "Anyway Mr. Flooble, the reason Parkinson wasn't wearing the Mark was they needed someone who could get financing from Gringott's, and you know they refused to give loans to any of the marked Death Eaters!"

Fergus looked puzzled. "I was under the impression that most of that gang had loans and mortgages from Gringott's. Those are what they foreclosed on. How did they get those loans and mortgages if the goblins wouldn't deal with them?"

Fern put in her two pence "I know that the mortgage on the MacHine mansion was over two hundred years old. I worked for MacHine for several years, and he was constantly grousing about this debt that his great grandfather had saddled him with. Talk about your thrifty Scot. A two hundred year mortgage never gets paid off, and the bank gets a guaranteed income for a long time. I suspect a lot of Voldemort's bunch had similar long term mortgages."

"Those goblins are shrewd business men, and wizards are pretty bad at maths. They really didn't teach about finances at Hogwarts. For most of the upper-class ones we have worked with, as long as the money was coming in, and they were living their nice lifestyle, they didn't look at it any deeper. Finances, that was servants' work. I know because I did MacHine's books for him, me and his house elves when he still had them."

Bertha looked disgusted. "Yuch, Goblins. Disgusting creatures. They should have been exterminated when we won the last war. Same with the rest of the vermin we have to deal with these days."

Fergus noticed that the other witches were making a subtle shift of their chairs to put a bit of distance between themselves and their colleague. He also wondered how it was that the goblins supposedly 'lost' their last rebellion, but managed to still be in charge of the money.

Fergus cleared his throat, and asked, "Well, can I ask why it was that you all quit? You had pretty high positions, with influence. It just seems odd to me that you all decided to 'retire' at the same time. Madam Vanation, Bertha, if you respected Lord Parkinson so much, why quit his service."

Bertha thought for a moment. "Well, he was getting rather odd the last couple months, since the goblins announced they were foreclosing on old loans. He never went home, because they took his house and lands. Some of his family apparently got to keep their places, but Potter bought the Parkinson property and put some sort of secret charm on it, and the family can't find it anymore. At New Year's, he got that gift basket like all the Lords and Ladies did, and that seems to be all he eats. I told him to go to the Wizengamot's cafeteria and I would arrange to have his charges expensed to this office, but he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. It was as if he was losing his mind."

"The final straw came when he tried to offer his daughter to Potter in marriage. Offering a good pure-blood girl to that troublesome half-blood. No, I could not accept that. Never."

The others nodded at this assessment of what some had started to call Parkinson's disease, or called it a mental breakdown from the elimination of the wealth that had fueled his rise to, and hold on, power. Many others had suffered similar reversals of fortune.

Fergus turned to one of the others. "Madam Yugest, what was it that made you quit woking in apost where you had great influence on our worl?"

The wtch smiled. "Fergus, my name is Shirley. And it was something similar to what Bertha spoke of. In my case, I had worked for Lord Nott for many years. As you probably know, the previous Lord Nott and his eldest son were executed after the latest war with the Dark Lord Voldemort. You know, after so many years for fearing it, it's still difficult to use that name. Well, Gregory Nott took the title of Lord Nott, but he had none of what we had thought was the upstanding character of his father. When the family fortune was lost to Gringott's, he started stealing from me. First it was just bits of my lunch, and apple, a couple grapes and such. Like Bertha said, he didn't seem to have a clue where the executive restaurant was, or even the staff cafeteria! Lately, he was stealing my entire lunch and saying that I was supposed to bring him food. That it was my duty, because I was as much as owned by his family because I had worked for them for so long."

Fern nodded her head. "Same with me, only a bit worse. Lord Flint. Again, a younger son who had never thought to inherit, and didn't know his duties and responsibilities as a Lord. Only he thought he was Merlin's gift to witches. Not only did he want me to provide him with food, he complained that I should be reclaiming his family's house elves, which had been bonded to the house, and not to him personally. He became very abusive. His wife had left him, and he didn't know where the ancestral mansion was anymore. And then, he told me that, being a Lord of the Wizengamot, he expected me to provide sexual favours as well."

"It might seem to be a bit flattering that a fifty year old witch would be thought desirable to a powerful Lord, but it was very disrespectful. It was almost like he thought I was no better than a house elf myself, and he could do whatever he wished to me."

Dot added "Well, I didn't have that problem, as I worked for Madam Umbridge, Deloris' younger sister, who got the seat when she was executed. Not so bad. But the smell."

The other witches nodded, and then smiled at Fergus' look of confusion.

Dot smiled at the reporter. "I guess you haven't been to the executive offices for a while. Since the Lords and Ladies we worked for had their finances, shall we say, curtailed and most don't have their mansions to return to, they had been wearing the same clothes for the last couple months."

"The final calamity, at least to me, was when the Ministry forbid the Scourgify cleaning spell. It seems that the high-borns not only couldn't remember where the restaurant and cafeteria were, but they couldn't remember where the washrooms were either. Mine had been using the waste-parchment basket in her office for the last couple months. Now, we had to call in security to check the mess before it could be disposed of. Between that, and the diarrhea and flatulence from the cabbages and figs and prunes in those damned gift basket, not to mention the laxative Every Flavour Beans, it became absolutely unbearable. Finally, just for my own health and sanity, I had to quit."

"I find it interesting that all of the ones who are having these problems were the ones who voted to declare Harry Potter and outlaw and a mutineer, and voted to confiscate his families property and fortunes. Odd that, isn't it? They go after the man who killed the worst dark lord in the last couple of centuries and then all these bad things start happening to them. And Potter's holding company is buying up property like crazy. You would almost suspect that there is some payback going on."

Bertha looked angry. "I told you Potter was a trouble-maker."

Dot looked at her colleague sadly. "Bertha, the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters tried to kill Potter for most of the first half of his life. Then after he won, and tried to change things just a bit, our wealthy and powerful went after him. Wouldn't you expect a bit of pushback, even if only in self defense? And remember he is married to two of the brightest witches of their generation. And the Wizengamot wasn't very nice to them either. I think it would have been a better idea to just leave them all alone."

Bertha looked at her younger friends and said "We've lost our jobs, our positions, and our livelihoods. What more could they do to us?''

Fern looked at her and asked "Are you really that keen to find out?"

**Author's Notes:** Previous chapters were, in part, inspired by Bob Newhart's sketches where you heard only one side of a telephone conversation, and had to imagine what the other side was saying. I just couldn't figure out how to make it work for this one. In addition, years ago, I saw a cartoon of a signpost at the side of the road, with every sign pointing to 'Rome', and was intrigued by the idea of coming to the same destination by very different routes.


	5. Thrown Overboard into Hostile Waters

**Captain Bligh and the Mutineers: Thrown Overboard Into Hostile Waters**

**Disclaimer:** Usual stuff. I own half of a house, an impressive CD and LP collection, a used car, and little else. I certainly do not own any of the billion-dollar-plus Harry Potter industry. This writing is for my own amusement, and hopefully that of others. No money made, no free flights to Tahiti, doodelly squat, nothing.

**Timeframe:** Post DH, ignoring the epilogue

**Rating:** M

**Warning:** Consensual Multiple Marriage (because someone groused about it).

**Second warning:** – it's diatribe time

**Synopsis:** After bashing their heads against the intransigence of wizarding society, escape seemed the only solution. History might not repeat itself, but sometimes there are similarities.

The Daily Prophet

_All the news that fits on the page_

**August 7, 2006**

**The Ministry Beat, by Fergus Flooble**

At the Midsummer session of the Wizengamot, the chamber was surprised when Harry Potter and his two wives entered the chamber and took seats. This was the first time Lord Potter (also Lord Black) had been in the chamber in several years.

Lady Swizzlestick, Head Supreme Witch pro tem, pending the return of Lord Parkinson from parts unknown (see article below), questioned the two witches as to their authority in entering the chamber. Lady Black (the former Miss Luna Lovegood) looked to her husband who responded that as it was difficult to be seated in two chairs simultaneously, as was his right as Head of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, he was appointing Lady Black as his proxy for the term of this session. Any previous quiet grumbling for the 'expensive seats' die down as the occupants realized that to object would question their own privileges in the assembly.

Amidst additional grumbling from the more conservative members of the legislative body (including whisperings about 'damned mudbloods'), the chairwitch questioned them as to why the three felt a third seat was available as the second Potter/Black chair was already filled. The other young witch (Lady Potter) stood and announced that as Dame Hermione Granger, holder of the Order of Merlin First Class, she was entitled under her own name and authority to attend. Given the impoverishment of previous challengers to holders the Order of Merlin, this grumbling died quickly.

Potter himself remained largely silent during the sessions, but his two wives made significant contributions to the debates. Dame Granger supported Lord Flibbit's annual (and usually pointless) call for better standardization of cauldron materials, citing several cases from her own days at Hogwarts when less wealthy students had been found to have substandard cauldrons, which leaked badly or had their bottoms corrode out during brewing of caustic potions. Lady Black proposed several measures to protect magical creatures, and proposed setting aside some unpopulated islands in the Hebrides as nature preserves, as they were (according to her) well populated by these timid creatures – it must be said that no one in the room, other than herself apparently, had even seen some of the beasts mentioned in her proposals. It was noted that her husband and co-wife sat smiling though her speech.

In an unexpected move which might indicate displeasure with Potter's return to Britain, several senior members of the Wizengamot have disappeared, and their whereabouts are unknown. The wizards and witches had been staying at their offices in the Ministry of Magic for the last several months, and seemed to have forgotten their homes, and even their basic hygiene (for further details, see this reporter's column on interviews held last winter). Most had their staff quit, as my articles of last winter indicated, and could often be heard bewailing how Harry Potter was responsible for all their troubles.

The Ministry had finally supplied these members with additional resources, such as self-emptying chamber pots once the factory managed to resume production in early June and the Ministry's Security Branch bespelled them to only accept normal biologic wastes, as some of the members in question had been caught destroying incriminating documents (from times under previous administrations) on occasion. Previously, the group had seemed immune from being held to account for anything from their previous activities, but someone who was more suspicious might think or hope those days are past.

Their wands were found left in their offices, and the tracking spells which Security maintains on senior staff, had been removed making finding them next to impossible. However, the life-sign monitors in the Gringott's Office of Inheritances and the Department of Mysteries (apparently to monitor assassinations and subsequent changes in the status of heirs and Heads of Families) shows that they are still very much alive. The instruments did not indicate that the notables had cast any spells of any kind for several weeks.

This paper will provide further details as they become available.

**The Social Beat, by Gilda Skeeter**

Harry Potter and his family have returned to Britain, and hosted a belated Solstice party to celebrate the July birthday of Lord Potter on the Salisbury Plains near Stonehenge. Many from the leading families of the wizarding world were in attendance, and several foreign guests were also present. Überkolonel Victor Krum of the Bulgarian Magical Army, who was the Durmstrang Tri-Wizard Champion the year Lord Potter was forced to compete, was there with his family, as was their co-Champion from the Beauxbatons Academie, Fleur Delacour Weasley.

Lady Weasley (as she is since the elevation of the Weasley family to the highest ranks of our society after the fall of Lord Nameless) was accompanied by her own and her husband's families, including her deceased brother-in-law, Frederic Weasley, who has recently taken a post as the Hogwarts' Underpoltergeist. The half-Veela witch has magnificently dressed in a silver designer from the 'House of Channelling-spirits', an noted Parisian fashion house. Her sister-on-law Ginny Weasley-Krum, the famous Seeker for the Anglesey Angels, was dressed in a forest gown from the firm of Brown and Patil, a rapidly-becoming famous Diagon Alley design house run by her sister-in-law, Lavender Weasley-Brown and another schoolmate, Pavarti Balachandran (neé Patil).

Other staff members from Hogwarts School were also in attendance, including Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, Professor Filius Flitwick and Groundskeeper Rubeus Hagrid.

Other Hogwarts' ghosts were also present, including Myrtle Nickleby, who told this reporter that it was the first time she had been outside of Hogwarts since she died some sixty years ago.

Lord Potter (and Lord Black, same guy) was accompanied by his wives and their children, the eldest of whom (the very young but precocious Honourable Patricia Potter-Black, daughter of Lady Black, the former Miss Luna Lovegood of the Ottery St Catchpole Lovegoods) was indicating that she wished to go home, because England was too cold – what the 14-month-old witch actually did was waddle over to her father whimpering something like "Want go home" as she shivered.

Several of the most notable personages of our society were not in attendance (see article above), as they have not been seen for many days. When asked about them, some witches who had worked with them for many years (who were also in attendance, which was a surprise to this reporter given their stated opinions of Potter) were heard to comment that they had not seen them for several weeks, and didn't miss them in the least.

A sumptuous meal was served to all, with all manner of beverages with the notable exception of pumpkin juice. When this reporter enquired about this strange oversight in the provisions, Lord Potter laughed and commented that after his years at Hogwarts, he had gotten 'very tired' of pumpkin juice (the phrase he actually used was not suitable for printing in this paper), had given up trying to get the house elves at Hogwarts to provide juices of any other sort, and swore that once he was on his own he would never touch the stuff again.

One recent fashion development, since the return to our country of the Potter-Black family, is a number of new hairstyle fashions. According to Rufus Rumplestiltskin, great-great grandson of the founder of Rumplestilt's Skin-and-Hair Salons (London, Paris, Kiev, Chicago and Moose Jaw), brunette witches have recently started having their hair done in a very bushy style, while the more blonde of our sisters have been having dark streaks added to their hair and and all natural curl removed. Young wizards have started having their hair done in a messy fashion called the 'Hairy', and wearing glasses with round frames. It is assumed that the apparent wealth and power of Lord Potter-Black, and the knowledge that wizards of his social and financial standing often have a number of mistresses, young witches seem to be emulating his wives' hair-styles in (perhaps slim) hopes of catching his eye, and the young wizards are seeking to catch the eyes of said young witches.

During a visit to this exclusive salon (purely for research purposes, you understand, as is critical to my submission of my expense claim), this reporter overheard some young witches discussing their hair treatments and the reasons for them. One of the young witches was heard to comment that Lord Potter was only a half-breed, so what could he know about 'real witches'. She further commented that he was obviously really horny having married two witches, and must be really _really_ desperate because one was widely known to be insane and the other was only a mudblood. Given how incredibly rich he was, as well as young (26) and seemingly very physically fit, she felt it her 'duty' to wizarding society to show him the value of a proper magical spouse and a _real_ witch. While her companions did giggle at this rather over-the-top description of the situation, it seemed to me that they also were not disagreeing with the sentiments (but possibly on the speaker's personal chances with Lord Potter, perhaps in contrast with their own).

The London Drivel of the World

_All the News our legal department says we can get away with printing_

**September 3, 2006**

Pictures of young women with bare tits ….As always, Page 3

Superman admits to being Muslim – confirms Kal-El is just Kryptonian spelling of Khalil

Recent Plague of Village Idiots

There has been some bizarre news on the medical front.

Several very strangely dressed men and women have turned up in small villages in the UK and throughout Europe over the last month or so. They all loudly proclaimed that they were very important people from the United Kingdom, although they said they were forbidden to say _where_ or _how_ they were 'very important'. When confronted by authorities, they protested that 'muggles' (whatever they are) had absolutely no authority or right to detain them as they were Pure-Blood Lords and Ladies (although the names they gave did not show up in Burke's Peerage or any other authoritative source, but the manner in which they said the description made it clear that the words were to be Capitalized) and demanded to be released at once.

Given the terrible treatment which has commonly been meted out to such odd characters in centuries past, these people (whom the locals were already beginning to refer to as the 'village idiots') were taken into police custody for their own protection. When restrained, they frequently turned violent and waved their hands in odd patterns which seemed significant to themselves alone, and were commonly admitted to local mental institutions.

When three of these poor apparently deluded creatures turned up together in the psychiatric ward at the Alexander Bell Hospital in Edinburgh, they seemed to recognise each other, calling each other the names which the others had already claimed, and falling into each other's arms crying.

Most of these oddballs were carrying what appeared to be coins, but of no known source. These included bronze, silver and gold coins, which were marked with some sort of runes. These were shown to experts in Norse and Germanic runes, as well as devoted readings of the Lord of the Rings books which details its own set of runes. Some experts in Nazi mythology also took a look at them, given the double lightning bolt 'SS' symbol was based on old Germanic runes. None of the experts could make much sense of the inscriptions.

One scholar from the University of Oslo ventured that they runes looked like an odd offshoot or derivation of those used by the Vikings who had invaded England in the 900's, but showed significant variations. He smiled and said that, if this was true, then the inscription on the gold coins translated very roughly to 'This coin is worth more than the (scatological description) carrying it.'

It seems that someone has been playing a very elaborate joke on these apparently lucid unfortunates, who seem almost to come from a world that is interleaved with our own, but definitely very separate.

**Summerfallow 47, 2006**

The Quibbler

_All the news that gives you fits_

Reported by Serdimer Mort

Muggle Government issues Major Lizard Warning for Scotland

In an occurrence which baffles the mind of the knowledgeable, the muggle government of Britain has again begun issuing major lizard warnings for areas in Scotland. These warnings seem to be issued every winter, but to date, no major infestations of lizards large or small seem to have occurred.

It is known that, other than the Norwegian Ridgeback and the Welsh Wyvern, most lizards cannot survive in the Scottish climate, particularly in winter, and neither of these species of dragons have been observed in the Highlands in recent years.

Why the muggles keep issuing these 'warnings' remains a mystery which this newspaper will try to unravel.

Lady Black pushes Nargle Preserve Law through Wizengamot

Lady Black (the former Miss Luna Lovegood and the daughter of the publisher of this paper, who wouldn't give this reporter the time of day when he asked her for a date fifteen years ago when she was ten and I was five) has managed to get the Wizengamot to set aside territory for the protection of the Hebridean nargles. She also proposed a study into the threatened status of the Irish gliding lemmings (which are indigenous around the Cliffs of Mohr, from which they jump), and recommended making contact with the American Department of Magic to see about protecting the Kansasian flying monkeys (whose only known sightings was in a documentary filmed some 65 years ago, and so are obviously already an endangers species).

Lady Black, who was instrumental in rescuing the Grenadian nargle population from extermination during Hurricane Ivan, made her matron speech (being married and having borne a daughter herself, the term 'maiden speech' seems rather inappropriate) last month, which was very well received. It is reported that after she spoke for seven hours, when she finished, the entire chamber applauded and cheered.

The Daily Prophet

_All the news that fits on the page_

**January 4, 2007**

The Ministry Beat, by Fergus Flooble

For some months, this reporter has been requesting an interview with Harry Potter, who all in wizarding society know as Lord Potter and Lord Black, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Man-Who-Won, Tri-Wizard Champion from Hogwarts, recipient of the Order of Merlin First Class, and several other honourary titles. Over the Solstice holidays, I received a package containing a portkey and the instructions to activate it on January 1st at seven in the evening, London time. It came with a note that, before activating it by touching the gold-encrusted flower with my wand at precisely seven o'clock, to take four deep breaths and hold the last one. It also offered that, if I wished to bring my family along with me, to bring bathing costumes, as they had a swimming pool – this implied both that the interview site was to be a lot warmer and more informal than is common for interviews with Lords of the Wizengamot. Both proved to be true.

It noted that, unknown to most British wizards, the duration of portkey travel depended on the distance to be travelled – most of our wizards and witches never travel beyond England, Scotland, Ireland or the continent, and so apparently are unaware of this detail. The warning implied that this portkey was set for a rather distant destination.

After what was definitely a longer trip that I was accustomed to, I and my wife and sons arrived beside the swimming pool behind a house on a hill overlooking a beautiful blue bay surrounded by palm trees. This was the first time in my life I have actually been in the presence of live palm trees. It appeared to be around mid-day, although we had started our journey on a winter evening where the sun was already down. The house had a large overhanging roof, providing shade to the terrace by the pool. Standing on the terrace was Lord Harry Potter, wearing a loose shirt and short pants, with sandals on his feet – as expected, somewhat less formal.

I recorded the subsequent conversation with Potter with my quick-quotes quill. My comments are denoted as being from FF, and his are shown as HP.

**HP:** Welcome to Black's Psychosis, Mr. Flooble.

**FF:** Please call me Fergus, my Lord. Would you prefer to be addressed as Lord Potter or Lord Black?

**HP:** (laughing): Those two self-important prigs reside in a couple of buildings in London. Here, I'm Harry. Just Harry. I suggest you take off your jumper. Here, they call them 'sweaters', and I must say that the emphasis is on the word 'sweat'. It gets a bit hot here in the afternoon. Would you care for a cold drink?

**FF:** Thank you. It's a bit warm for fire-whiskey. What would you suggest? A cold butter-beer would be nice, although I suspect you are about to offer something else.

**HP:** Have you ever had a piña colada? They were invented about 600 miles that way.

He pointed, as far as I could tell, northwest. A house elf handed us tall glasses with a yellowish slurry in it. I took a drink. It was cold and very tasty.

**FF:** This is quite good!

**HP:** The muggles have come up with a lot of rather nice intoxicating drinks. We British wizards seem to stick to fire-whiskey and butterbeer, for no good reason that I can fathom, but around here they drink a lot of rum of a whole range of different colours, and strengths. In France, they drink wine – you know the Delacour family produces some nice vintages, and Beauxbatons has courses in viniculture. There's also tequila, vodka, schnapps, brandy, sake, beers, ciders, wines, and a whole bunch of different kinds of whiskey as well. Muggles outnumber us by about a thousand to one, and they have come up with a very wide range of ways to get legless. Some better than others, and this is one of the nicer ones. In case you wondered, the one your boys got don't have the rum in them.

With that, he held up his glass, in a toast.

Lady Black was in the pool with two tiny young girls, one blonde (presumably her daughter) and one brunette (presumably Lady Potter's offspring). The elder witch was wearing a blue swimsuit which would be considered scandalous in wizarding Britain, and the children were wearing pants which seemed to shimmer. For my excursions to the beaches of France in my younger years, I knew that in the muggle world, Lady Black's light blue one-piece swimsuit would be considered quite conservative. It also showed that she was quite pregnant.

(Smiling in the direction of his wife), **HP:** Luna is extremely fond of small creatures, even if she has to produce them herself.

Lady Black waved an invitation to my wife and sons, who quickly changed into their own swimming costumes more in keeping with wizarding styles, and joined them in the pool. Sheila wore a suit with a knee length skirt and leggings and the boys were wearing knee-breeches and vests. Lady Black swam to the side of the pool, picked up her wand and cast a spell on my family. At my concerned look, she announced, "Just a little protection against sunburn. It happens frighteningly quickly here, if you're not prepared and protected. There's nothing quite like a child's accidental magic when they are screaming in pain."

**FF:** I am curious about the pants your children are wearing. They seem to shimmer.

**HP:** They're something Hermione and Luna came up with together. Permanently auto-scourgifying swim pants. They came up with diapers with the same built in spells. Makes changing babies a whole lot less onerous, and selling like hotcakes in the Americas and Europe, but nobody in Britain will carry them – too 'radical' for them I guess. One of the problems with Britain in my opinion. A good example of what you get when you put two brilliant people with different viewpoints together – you never know what new ideas they will come up with. If they keep working together like this, they will richer than I am, in their own right.

I looked around at the lush foliage and the waves lapping on the shore some distance below.

**FF:** Where are we? I left London on a cold winter day, and _this_ obviously is not _there_.

HP: Well, the old saying in the security business is 'I could tell you , but then I would have to kill you.' I said the name of this house is Black's Psychosis. We're on _ _ Road on the Island of _, and I guess my godfather thought the location was a great excuse for a good pun. This is one of the places that the bigwigs in the Wizengamot tried to steal from me!

My quick-quotes quill refused to write the name of the location. The reason became clearer later in our talk.

**HP:** I see that our security systems are working. Sorry about that, but you have to remember that people have been trying to kill me, steal from me, lie about me, poison me, and all sorts of other ways to harm me, for my entire life. In past years, that included the paper you work for. The late and unlamented Tom Riddle, who you may know as Lord Voldemort, murdered my parents when I was an infant, and tried to kill me over and over again for years, until I put paid to him myself. That's how I got to be called 'The Boy Who Lived. I always wondered how people found out about that and this.

He tapped the scar on his forehead.

**HP: **I mean, no one survived who was there when it happened, other than myself, and until I re-entered the wizarding world ten years later, only three magicals had ever seen the scar, yet it was in all the books. Described very accurately, I must say. I often wonder who let the secret leak - I have my suspicions, of course, but let that go. Anyway, some wizards and witches know his name as Voldemort, even though many don't because the people around them were too terrified to even say the name, so when they said 'You-Know-Who' they knew who they were referring to, but had no idea what the name actually was. He was terrible, but they were giving him more power over them by their reluctance, no, _refusal_ to stand up to him. That is another one of the real problems with our society.

**FF: **You say that's one of the problems. What do you see as some of the other problems?

**HP:** Well, I think you could sum up most of the problems as intolerance and arrogance. A lot of wizards and witches think that they are the pinnacle of existence, and we Brits have a bad habit of thinking of ourselves as superior to all other wizards and witches – I have to say that muggle Brits have the same prejudice about other nations. A lot of nations have a similar problem, but we Brits have a really bad case of it. And the high-class fools, or rather, the aristocracy revel in it.

**HP: **Another example is how we treat other magical people. Hermione and I got run out of England for trying to get laws passed preventing house elf abuse, and recognising the rights of other races such as the goblins and giants. Muggle scientists define species as groups that cannot interbreed, yet there are part-goblin wizards and part-giants. Apparently, we're not separate species, but we treat them like they were. Tell me, is Kingsley Shacklebolt human?

I was shocked at this question.

**FF:** Of course. He's the Minster of Magic.

**HP:** But he has black skin. Two hundred years ago, not far from where we stand, he would not have been considered human. We know better now, but have we really changed that much, the way we treat others? You have interviewed Ragnok, the Head Goblin at Gringott's – is he a person? Worthy of protection under the laws? He can read and write and speak, he had his own form of magic, and he is a powerful man.

**FF:** I think I see your point. He is a different species, or from what you said earlier, maybe not even that.

**HP:** We don't even treat our own species with respect. I don't know if you knew, but Hermione, also known in London as Lady Potter, completed her qualifications for her Mastery in Charms, and the British Authority refuses to certify her, because she is a muggle-born. Or we prefer around here, a first-generation witch – unless the very first people to ever walk the earth were magical, we all had a first-generation witch or wizard somewhere in our ancestry.

**FF:** By the way, where _is_ Lady Potter? I feel I should at least pay my respects.

**HP:** She'll be joining us for dinner later on. She's hard at work re-writing the laws she intends to re-introduce at the next session of the Wizengamot. Hopefully, this time, it won't get us kicked out of the country, now that the prime bigots are missing. She is also finishing the paperwork for her Mastery from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Magic – the Americans are willing to accept the documentation from the English wizard who was her mentor and will certify her as a Master herself, even if the Brits won't. Oh, and also she was feeding Jimmy and then putting him down for his nap. If the girl isn't doing three things at once, she gets restless.

**FF:** Ah yes, speaking of the high-and-mighties. I get the impression that you know something about their disappearances, and might have something to do with it.

**HP:** I might. All right, I did have something to do with it, and I knew you're going to ask. I, or rather we, are also behind last year's Ministry rule about prohibiting shedding or disposal of documents. We finally got the proof of some of the goings on at the Ministry, and a lot of people wanted to destroy what evidence they could before it went to the DMLE for prosecution.

He paused and thought for a moment, perhaps on how to best explain his actions.

**HP:** For all my life, Voldemort and his cronies and followers have been after me. Trying to hurt me, or kill me if they could. The hurt a lot of my friends, and killed too many of them. They corrupted the Ministry, either by threats, by bribery and eventually by force. There were some inside and outside the Ministry who were either supporting Voldemort, or in one case, just out for their own – we were never able to prove any connection with the Death Eaters for one such witch that who you probably know given your time at the Prophet, but we suspect she was just power hungry on her own.

**HP:** (continued) After Voldemort's final death, the Ministry got cleaned up, for the most part. The aurors got back up to strength, and a lot of the corruption stopped. However, there were a number of highly placed wizards and witches who had not supported Voldemort _openly_, and so were able to arrange for funding, syphoning off Ministry money to the Death Eaters and so on. There were a lot who did not support Voldemort because they wanted to be on the top of the heap themselves, and knew that a Dark Lord doesn't share power, just terror. To the ex-Death Eaters, I was seen as a threat because I had defeated their Dark Lord. To the others, I and my friends were trying to clean up the corruption and the bigotry that pervades our society, and so I was a threat to them too. And they all decided to go after me and my friends.

**HP:** I, Hermione, Luna, and others, were called traitors, mutineers, and other things. I could live with that for myself, but they went after my friends too. Then they decided I was still a threat, and they got greedy. So they tried to seize my property and inheritances, and figured they could get away with it. I call that legally-endorsed stealing! Now, I only got those inheritances because people I loved were murdered by Voldemort and his henchmen, or henchwoman in the case of my godfather. Now, I had been raised poor and wouldn't have minded for myself. I knew how to work for a living because that's how I grew up, but to me the legally-condoned theft was like dancing on my parents' graves. Fortunately, by that time, I had some pretty formidable allies. Then, while we were in 'exile', if you will, they sent hit wizards to capture or kill me.

**HP:** They saw me as a threat, and they kept coming after me, over and over, just like Voldemort used to do. I would have left them alone if they had left me alone. That's all I wanted. But they couldn't or wouldn't do that. Once we started our family, I realized that they were essentially trying to turn my children into orphans, and steal their bread from their mouths. I found this intolerable, and decided to act. Hermione's mum told me that if I didn't act, then they won. Not acceptable.

**HP:** So I talked to some people at Gringott's, who had decided that there were some outstanding loans that looked like they would never get paid back, which they considered to be very bad business practice. I offered to buy the debts at cost, instead of the more typical business arrangement of buying them at a steep discount. They were happy to oblige, as this way they would recover _all_ their money, not just 50 percent or less. Fergus, are you familiar with the Fidelius spell?

**FF:** I have heard of it. I understand that it is a kind of disillusion spell, but for a property instead of a person. It's also a very difficult spell to cast, and very secretive. Ah, the quill!

Smiling, he nodded.

**HP:** Right in one. This and all my other properties are protected. All of the properties I bought from Gringott's, due to their foreclosing on the properties of certain of the high-and-mighty, are also under the spell – their previous owners have no idea where their former homes are anymore. Only the actual current owner of the property can invoke or request the spell. Unless you are told the location by a certain person, you cannot remember it, and you cannot tell anyone else about it. I cannot tell you where most of the properties are because I am not that certain person for those places. For here, I am, which is why I could tell you where we are. I could not tell you where the other places are, even under veritaserum.

**HP:** When Gringott's requested re-payment of the loans, as a reasonably polite first step allowing the people to clear their debts honourably, they were refused in the most abusive ways possible. At that point, they decided to join the fight and called in the loans. If strictly monetary, they seized what they call liquid assets, but if the assets were property, they foreclosed. Did you know that Gringott's owns the Ministry building? No? Well, certain portions of the building were put under the Fidelius, and most of the staff were informed of their locations. Most, but not all. Those who continued to threaten or abused my friends or business associates were not informed. Your reports of last winter detailed the consequences of that.

**HP:** I guess by this point, you could summarize the people in question as my enemies.

**FF:** So you destroyed them financially, and now you destroyed them physically too. Are you going to be the next Dark Lord?

I started to feel quite concerned for my family's safety.

**HP:** I'll tell you a bit of philosophy. First, no tyrant ever thinks he is at fault or is doing wrong. Now, I have given my wives strict orders that, if I start going 'Dark' and really hurting other people, they are to kill me. Pure and simple, kill me! Because I would not deserve to live if that happened.

**FF:** Do you give your wives a lot of 'orders'?

He laughed heartily.

**HP:** You obviously have not met my wives or spent much time around them. I couldn't order those two around even if I wanted to. Do you remember the summer session of the Wizengamot? They were magnificent at it. Put the Pure-bloodists' noses completely out of joint – I loved it. When Luna or Hermione or I cannot attend a session, I intend to appoint my old classmate Seamus Finnigan as my proxy – he's a so-called half-blood and Irish on top of it – that'll get their knickers in a twist for sure! At the session, Hermione spoke her mind about things that she saw were unfair to students being cheated by unscrupulous cauldron suppliers, in support of an old and respected (if senile) wizard. It showed that just because Hermione was muggle-born does not mean she does not have a place in the highest ranks of our society. Luna spoke her mind about things she cared about. And neither one seemed to be out of place, although Luna's speech left a lot of the gathering wondering what planet she came from

**HP:** Actually, I think the main problem with our society is that we do not have a rule of law, but the rule of bullies. Hermione, bless her heart, was raised as a good Christian girl in the Church of England, and was taught the golden rule "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Luna was raised as a pure-blood witch, and learned "Do unto others before they do unto you, because they _are_ going to do unto you." The creed of a Dark Lord, and the ones in the Wizengamot that I have the most trouble with is "Do unto others, just because you can and nobody will stand up to you." Nobody would stand up to Voldemort in sufficient numbers to stop him, because his supporters had corrupted the system, and the bullies at the top have taught our society to let the bullies have their way. And, do you know what would have happened to Hermione and her parents if she had not come to Hogwarts?

**FF:** Wouldn't they have let her go to another school like Beauxbatons?

**HP:** Nope. Nothing nearly that nice. They would have obliviated her parents, obliviated her and put a permanent block on her magic. In other words, they would have stolen her ability to do magic, and mind-raped her and her parents. And do you know why? The powers-that-be claim this is to prevent muggles from knowing about the wizarding society. It's supposed to be for _our_ protection.

**HP:** They claim that, if the muggles knew about us, we would all be burned at the stake. By my third year, it was pointed out clearly that burning at the stake doesn't work! Fergus, you and I, and the women and children we love, have this wonderful gift of magic. And the powers are prepared to steal that from us and mind-rape us to protect us from a threat that doesn't exist. Just because they can get away with it!

**HP:** Most of our people just tried to keep their heads down and hope that the harm would be to somebody else. So Voldemort and his Death Eaters raped, stole and murdered, and very few stood against them. Cowards that they were, they often went after muggles who _could not_ defend themselves against magic! And because the ones who stood up to them were so few, like my parents, the Death Eaters could outnumber them and kill them.

**HP:** Personally, I try to work on "Do unto others only what they tried to do to you. And no farther." So when the ones at the top saw me as a threat, decided to steal from me and try to run out of the country, I decided to fight back. I did not try to kill them, but I did have their magic blocked for three years, on top of buying their properties out from under them. I also arranged for personal protection, to see that no physical harm comes to them. Do you think they will appreciate it that their safety is being very well protected by goblins from Gringott's security division? I doubt it.

**HP:** Fergus, look around. It's a beautiful place, in a beautiful world. Sometimes I think that we who are first-generation, or muggle-raised like myself, have something that most pure-bloods will never have and have a difficult time even comprehending. A sense of wonder at the world of magic. When I came into our world, everything was wonderful, even the bad things, because they were magic. People who grew up with it don't see how special it is.

**FF:** So why did you take the magic away from those you call your enemies?

**HP:** An excellent point. Please remember that I only had their magic blocked for three years, and I did not have their memories erased or removed. In that three years they will know what they have lost, and they can blame me for it if they like - Parkinson will blame me, I know. I think it will be an extremely valuable lesson to really know what they have lost, and realize what it is like to be poor and powerless. For all intents and purposes, for those three years, they will be squibs, the very people that they have despised. And unless you tell them in your paper, they will imagine that it may be permanent. I hope it scares the shit out of them. Maybe they'll be better people when they get their magic back – given that, I hope you don't tell them that they only have to wait for three years. Or maybe I'll go back and make it ten years, so that when three years comes and goes without their magic coming back, they will know what it is like to have their hopes and dreams crushed, like the muggle-borns and squibs who are not allowed to live as muggles without them being obliviated , but are not allowed to get ahead in our own society either.

**FF:** But what if you're wrong?

**HP:** Oh I fully expect to be wrong, on a whole range of things. That's why I hired those witches you interviewed before. They work for my Department of Court Jesters.

**FF:** That sounds kind of demeaning. Why would they even work for a department called that? Sounds quite undignified.

**HP:** Ah, dignity at all costs. Right, the source of a lot of problems in life – you know sometimes pride and dignity are just too expensive. And you apparently don't recall the role of the court jester. At a time when everyone was bowing and scraping telling the king just what he wanted to hear, the court jester had the permission, even the duty, to say what those in power did not want to hear. To tell them the truth. It's a very important job, and that's the job I hired them for. I want them to tell me and correct me when I am wrong. Do you have any idea what the important lesson that Professor Dumbledore taught me was? Even if he did not intend to do so.

**FF:** How to fight Lord Voldemort and kill him?

**HP:** Nope, he never taught me that, although I suspect he arranged to have the right teachers for me at the right time.

**FF:** Spells to defend yourself?

**HP:** Nope, same answer. The most important thing is 'Don't believe your own press'. That's the problem most important people forget. They start to believe they are infallible, because everyone around them tells them so. I know better, and if I start to get too big for my britches, I want, no I need, them to tell me so.

**FF:** So, contrary to what is being said about you, you are not trying to take over our society.

**HP:** Hell no! Did you see the article one of your writers put in the Prophet where she overheard some your witches at the beauty salon? Things like that make me want to go into exile again, and let the bigoted masses rot. Why would I want to take over a society where such ideas are the norm, even if it was just some teenagers dreaming? But I grew up feeling worthless, and I feel there is something I can do to make things better.

At this point, the sun was setting and a house elf appeared to tell us that dinner was ready, and was arranged on the buffet by the pool. My wife was now wearing a one-piece swimsuit similar to Lady Black's, but with a palm tree pattern, and the boys were wearing swim trunks like you would see on muggle beaches. They appeared to have had an enjoyable afternoon, and had transfigured their costumes while Lady Black was putting the two children down for a nap.

Lady Potter joined us and we had a pleasant evening. She was wearing a knee-length sun dress, with bare shoulders, and she was carrying a baby boy whose hair was sticking out in every direction.

We all chatted for a while, and ate and drank as we watched the sun set over the ocean.

As we had travelled a long way and apparently across several time zones, we soon tired, and returned home to London.

When I returned to my office, before submitting this report and as required by company policy, I had the Prophet's mediwitch check me for any obliviation or compulsion spells. She could find none. I believe that I was not bespelled or drugged, but then, I would if it was competently done, and from all I have read and seen, the Potter family is nothing if not competent. In this business, you cannot always trust what you are told, because everyone has their own agenda. Particularly when it involves High Politics.

However, I was working at the Prophet during the Fudge administration when they were doing anything they could to discredit Potter and Dumbledore, who were then found to be telling the truth about Voldemort's return. From what I have seen of our society and how it has treated him and what he has accomplished, I am inclined to believe his stories.

I don't know if Lord Potter will make good his threat to lengthen the time his enemies have to live with no magic. Given his explanations, I'm not sure I would want to tell them even if I did know.

And If he decides to act, like the actions of the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord he killed, there is very little anyone could do to stop him. Dark, or justified? You decide.

Looking over my notes, I can tell that this report is not going to be met with universal approval.

**A/N:** Some fifteen years ago we were in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where they say the piña colada was invented. We stopped at a small café called Amanda's, just below San Cristobal Fortress, where they claimed that they had come up with it, and they made them with bit of grenadine in the bottom of the glass (before pouring in the coconut-pineapple- rum mixture), which gave it a pretty pinkish bloom at the bottom of the drink.

In Grenada, at the height of land between Prickly Bay and L'anse Aux Epines is Wit's End Road. I love the name, and thought it would strike the fancy of one of the Marauders. I have assumed that Sirius Black picked up the property in the days when he and James Potter were employed as aurors.


End file.
